Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

It is totally unacceptable that in our State in 2025, children have no guarantee of an appropriate class place to meet their needs. An appropriate class place for children with additional needs will ensure that they can engage and fully participate in the classroom the same as any other child, and an appropriate class place must also be in the child's community. Why would we be busing our most vulnerable children around, expecting them to travel long distances to go to school and receive an education? Every single year, earlier and earlier, we start to hear from parents who are frantically ringing around schools asking for a place for their child. Parents should never be put in this position.

The motion brought forward by the Labour Party, which I welcome, also references the arbitrary cap on SNAs. We are hearing from parents now whose child has had a full-time SNA but will not have one from September. Why is this happening? I received figures last week showing that over 81,000 children are now on waiting lists for psychology, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy under primary care. That is not to mention the over 14,000 waiting for an assessment of need or the thousands of children waiting under the CDNTs. We have thousands of children on waiting lists. We need to train more therapists and we need them in our schools yesterday. As I have said before, everything for these parents is a battle, whether it is about school, waiting lists or therapies. It should not be this way.

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