Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I raise again the issue raised previously by Senator Freeman, namely, that of children with special needs. I also attended the meeting last night in Donnycarney and I listened to parents in deep distress talk about the lack of services available to them. I have also been dealing this week with a family in Raheny whose daughter, Abigail, was diagnosed with autism at two years of age. The family has been told that she is unlikely to get access to an early intervention team until she reaches five years of age. Without wanting to get political about this, the Taoiseach stated that he can throw away €3 billion in taxes over the next five years. This is at a time when families are exhausted, suffering and wounded by their experience of having to go to war with the State, which is what happens when one has a child with special educational needs. The State does not provide these people with support to maximise their children's potential. In effect, they must go to war with the State.

The Department of Health, as Senator Freeman suggested, and the Department of Education and Skills are completely unequipped to deal with this matter. It may be time for the sections of those Departments which deal with children with special educational needs to be transferred to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in circumstances in which they do not have a feel for it, warmth for it or compassion for it, perhaps because there are so many other things on their agendas. For children with special educational needs, their families and parents who are exhausted and war-weary, it is time for the State to implement an administrative change by moving responsibility to another Department. Certainly, I hope the Taoiseach will talk less about tax cuts and more about investment in children and families.

As others have done, I condemn absolutely those who last night vandalised the monument to those Irishmen, mainly, who died in the First World War. Family members of mine are buried at Gallipoli and the Somme. The Ó Ríordáins were once the Riordans but my great grandfather, who was a tailor in the British Army, inserted an "Ó" to emphasise his Irishness. I have family members who fought in the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War. I would not wear a poppy or a lily, but anyone who decides to paint on or desecrate a monument of that nature, as happened last night, insults every single Irishman and Irishwoman in this State and across the globe. It is gratifying and comforting to know that people from across the House have prioritised that message this morning and are stating collectively that we want to remember those who have fallen in war and ensure we never make those mistakes again.