Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

I ask the Leader to request that the Minister for Education and Science come into the House to discuss the legislation on special needs. It is clear that the best intentions of the Department to implement such legislation have fallen back. There is a failure on the part of someone but the responsibility must lay with the Minister who introduced the legislation. I mentioned an issue relating to this on two occasions this week. Apart from that particular situation, the delay in assessments across the country has continued. The appointment of personnel to carry out those assessments has failed to be implemented as promised. The series of initiatives promised by the Minister to have a proper special needs service have all failed. The evidence of that is the additional work forced on principals of national schools. They complain that despite the work they are carrying out to speed up the implementation of the special needs policy, it is only adding to the existing bureaucracy. I ask that the Minister come in to the House account for her effectiveness or failure to implement the legislation properly in the last six months.