Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Seamus Healy (IND), Tipperary South

Parents of children with special needs have to fight for everything. It is a rollercoaster of anxiety and stress. Early warning signs usually show around six months, but support of relatives and friends suggest it is a little bit slow and it will come right. However, at 12 months, things like a vacant stare or little or no baby babble spark real concerns. The anxiety, stress and sleepless nights for parents start in a real way. By 18 months, missed milestones confirm a problematic future and the fight for parents begins in earnest. The first hurdle is the assessment of need. Thousands of people and children, over 20,000 of them, are on waiting lists: over two and a half years of waiting at a time when a diagnosis and treatment is absolutely vital. Parents who can manage it deprive themselves to scrape together the fee for a private assessment.
Armed with that diagnosis, the fight begins again for services. The next hurdle is a massive waiting list for those therapy services, such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and so on. By now, parents are running on empty, stressed out, anxious and not sleeping. Despite the need for two incomes to keep a roof over their head, one parent frequently has to give up work. This is more stress - financial stress. The next hurdle is a struggle to get their child an appropriate school place. They may have to go to the High Court to get that. The eventual place may be anything up to 25 miles from home. However, then there is the huge relief of getting an appropriate school place. Trained special needs assistants and trained special needs teachers are angels. The child begins to respond and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Last week, the Government turned off that light. It created fear, trepidation and confusion. The so-called pause last week was a smokescreen to buy time. Last night's climb-down is a sticking plaster at best. Parents of children with special needs and special needs assistants need to know that the criteria for getting a special needs assistant will include not just primary care needs but, for instance, a child with autism who is overwhelmed or an anxious child who is unable to learn without adult support and without help with communications and for social understanding-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24