Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

This amendment follows on the amendments made in section 4 to amend the definition of support services in section 2 of the Education Act 1998. As section 2 of the Act has been amended to clarify the position that the delivery of health and personal services, including speech therapy services, to students of school going age is not a support service to be provided by the Minister for Education and Skills, sections 7(5) and 7(6) of the Education Act, which provided for the Minister for Education and Skills to request the services of health boards to make provision for such services, no longer apply. The support services are now delivered by the HSE as opposed to by individual health boards, subsequent to the establishment of the HSE by the Health Act 2004. The HSE has responsibility for the delivery, planning and co-ordination of service delivery. My Department will continue to support the co-ordinated delivery of services to families of children with special educational needs and will continue to work with service providing partners in health and disability sectors through the inter-departmental cross-sectoral teams.