Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Conor D. McGuinness (SF), Waterford

The Government is failing children in Waterford with additional needs over the stagnation in early intervention classes. Five years ago, there were two early intervention classes across Waterford city and county. This year, there are still two. That is despite an increasing need and a demand that is there but unmet. These early interventions are critical for children’s educational and social outcomes. It is something that the Taoiseach’s Government needs to grapple with. Over the last nine or ten months, we have seen issues around special education spaces and classes in schools. While the Government did belatedly do some work to fill some of those gaps in service provision, there is a lot more to do. That situation is still there and I think there will be problems next year. We need to get to grips with the early intervention classes and increase them dramatically so that there is availability for parents to get their children that much-needed timely intervention.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12