Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I accept the Leas-Chathaoirleach's ruling.

The decision on the allocation of funds will be taken by the Department of Finance and that decision will be based on economic considerations. It will not focus on welfare and education, which is clearly the concern of this legislation but rather on the resources available to the Department of Education and Science and how much of those resources it can afford to allocate to special educational needs services. This is the situation that will prevail if this amendment is not accepted and Senator O'Toole's words will come back to haunt service providers in the future. I appeal to the Minister of State to accept this amendment and consider that a future Minister for Finance may decide to pull the plug on this funding. This amendment makes provision for such an eventuality, which goes against the spirit of the legislation.