Special Educational Needs
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-17
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Tom Clonan (IND), University of Dublin

The parents have provided me with a great deal of extensive and lengthy briefings. They have set out every law from the Equal Status Act to the Equality Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which we are in breach of, contrary to the letter and spirit of the convention. At the moment there is no pathway of treatment for these children through the Health Service Executive CDNT model. To get the intensive speech therapy these children need, their only shot is to get it by means of these special classes. I ask the Minister of State explicitly in the 60 seconds he has, whether he he undertake to take out those three words, "of unknown origin". They are explicitly discriminatory. Will his office please respond to the parents in Loughrea? They really need an update on the pilot project and for it to be implemented and operationalised.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:04+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-17