Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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209. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the impact of the roll out of the network of disability teams on the provision of services to special classes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14572/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Health therapy supports for children with disabilities, including physical and sensory therapy supports are provided by the Health Service Executive (HSE). The HSE, which has statutory responsibility for the management and delivery of health and personal social services, is currently engaged in a reconfiguration of existing health related therapy resources for children with complex needs, into multi-disciplinary geographically based teams as part of its National Programme on Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People (0-18 years).

The aim of of this programme is to achieve a national, unified approach to delivering disability health services so that there is a clear pathway to services for all children, regardless of where they live, what school they go to or the nature of their disability.

The education sector, which is working very closely with Health, is fully involved in the development of the Programme, to ensure that, from the children's and parents' perspective, the services provided by each sector are integrated, in so far as is possible.

The Deputy will be aware that the Programme for Partnership Government includes a commitment to introduce a new in-school speech and language service creating stronger links between parents, teachers and speech and language therapists. This Government has also committed to increase the number of HSE speech and language therapists by some 25%, bringing the number up to 1,102.

Officials of my Department will meet counterparts in the Departments of Health, Children and Youth Affairs and the HSE in the coming weeks to consider the proposals and to commence the development of an implementation plan to give effect to the commitment.

I am confident that the proposed development of in-school provision, supported by the proposed additional resources and the re-configuration of HSE multi-disciplinary geographically based teams in all regions across the country, will ensure that services for children with disabilities will be significantly improved.