Disability Services
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-18
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Maurice Quinlivan (SF), Limerick City

My concern about the changes announced last week are that they risk deepening the chaos already prevalent in special education and that we are placing an additional administration burden on educators. In Limerick, for instance, 259 children are waiting for an assessment of need and none of them was met within the statutory timeline so the Government is failing those children with zero of 259 children having been met. The fact remains that the Government is in daily breach of the law by not honouring the requirement to provide an assessment of need within six months.
I urge the Minister to initiate a new campaign to recruit people to services, to advertise it properly - unfortunately, that was not done the last time - and, if sufficient applications are not received, to expand the drive internationally if we need to do so. The removal of the need for a formal diagnosis to access a special class or special school placement and its replacement raises concerns, not only with me, but with the teachers' unions which said they were not consulted in advance of last week's announcement, which is disappointing to say the least. It is not acceptable for this responsibility to be pushed onto educators without them even being consulted. Decisions on the necessary supports should remain the responsibility of qualified educational and disability professionals.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-18