Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

This morning Senators will have received from the Minister for Education and Science a comprehensive list of appointments she has made at national level. Parents, school management boards and principals can have access to those people and resources in respect of special educational needs. However, for this to be fully effective it is important that, in tandem with the initiative, the Minister reviews the Department's current strategy which militates against rural national schools. Many schools have in recent months received notification from the Department that they are to lose resource teachers or special needs assistants.

While there is a very fine plan for access and assessment of needs, assessing people without follow-up implementation is of very little value. In that context, will the Leader ask the Minister for Education and Science to review the plan which militates against rural national schools and the appointment of personnel in order to provide facilities as they were heretofore, although patchy, to children with special needs in national schools in rural Ireland?