Disability Services
Dail Éireann — 2021-09-21
============================================================

Anne Rabbitte (FF), Galway East

I thank the Deputies for raising this important matter. As Deputy Carroll MacNeill said, it is not a school in the ordinary sense of a school and it is important for people who are looking in here to understand this. We are discussing the most vulnerable young people in society. The Deputies will be aware that I have met with parents and families of Carmona on a number of occasions, as well as visiting Carmona earlier this year with Deputies Devlin and Carroll MacNeill. I know all too well the difficulties they have faced during the roll-out of the progressing disability services model, PDS, in this area. PDS should never have been a one-size-fits-all.
I also recognise the challenges in meeting the demand for children's disability services and I am acutely aware of how this impacts on children and their families in these most difficult and challenging times. That said, I assure the House that from my perspective the HSE carried out all requests and directions made by myself when it came to pausing the removal of therapy posts from special schools. The pause button was hit so I could work with the Department and HSE on securing an additional 85 therapists for our special schools, which was successfully achieved before the summer, including the posts remaining in Carmona.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-09-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:35+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-09-21