Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-17
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

That is a bit silly. The bottom line is that we are prioritising children and we want to do that. It is accepted that there are issues facing children in this country, but we provided for a major 20% increase in investment in disability services. As the Deputy knows, we are now developing a new education therapy service, which will be transformative. It will start in special schools early in the new year. It will be expanded into all special schools in the school year beginning in September of next year. Then we will expand it into the mainstream classes. That will have multidisciplinary teams in schools for children with disabilities.
In parallel with that, we are investing in disability services. We are amending the assessment of need to make sure we prioritise the provision of therapists to children, as opposed to them being behind desks doing all sorts of assessments that are not the optimum use of their time. We need therapists to work with children on the ground. We have 400 new special classes this year, and we also have 300 new special school places sanctioned for the 2025-26 school year.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-17