Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not disagreeing with anything the Deputy is saying. The issue is solutions and we have got to work on it. My own view is that the progressing disability programme, which was developed back in about 2013, has not worked, or the particular models. I want to pay tribute to people working in CDNTs because they have had huge burdens and workloads but the problem is, prior to 2013, special schools had therapists. They were taken out of the special schools and spread more widely. In my view, those with severe and profound needs lost out.

There is no easy solution to it but we need to provide a therapy service in education, and we need to do that in the first instance with special schools. This is something I have been focused on for quite a long time. I acknowledge the frustration. In the last term of the previous Government, we were not in a position to get it over the line but we have made it clear we want to do it this time. That is not the full answer but it at least allows for and would create a multidisciplinary within the special schools that we could then evaluate and expand to the broader school system.

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