I am here asking a number of questions and the Minister of State may or may not have some of the answers. It is important to raise the issue once again and to highlight the problems we are likely to encounter in advance of September and the intake of students into special schools. The Minister of State is obviously aware that there was a pilot scheme to reintroduce therapists, OT, physio, speech and language therapists, etc., into special schools, initially run in Cork and Dublin, with three special schools in Cork and five or six special schools in Dublin. It is something that at this stage is universally agreed should never have been taken out of schools in terms of the introduction of PDS and how that model has basically failed to deliver for students and families alike. That said, the pilot scheme has been up and running for six or seven months at this stage. I would have advocated strongly on behalf of a school in Cork, St. Killian's Special School in Mayfield, where, after a lengthy campaign, it was successful in being allowed to procure privately the therapists it needed because it was excluded from the initial intake in the special pilot scheme. Where are we at with the pilot scheme? Given we have a commitment from Government that therapists will be reintroduced at all levels into all special schools in the country, and I understand that will most likely be done on a phased basis, where are we with the pilot with the seven or eight schools that were initially selected last year? As far as I am concerned, the pilot is surely moot at this stage. If we are allocating all the therapists to all schools, is the pilot for those that were chosen for it last year essentially scrapped and defunct at this stage? If it is, that is fine because it is merely the reality of where we are at because we are reintroducing therapists to all schools. It is important to establish on a factual basis where we are with that pilot. The difficulty we are likely to face with some of the schools that have been placed on that pilot as of last September is that the majority of them still have teams that do not have their full complement of staff. In all three cases in Cork, they have struggled to appoint the full complement of staff in the six months the pilot scheme has been up and running. My concern is, if we are putting therapists back into all special schools, given we have struggled to appoint staff to the three in Cork that were selected, and Cork has 14 or 15 special schools in total, what is the likelihood of us successfully staffing all those other schools if we cannot even do it successfully in the three that were selected for the pilot? In fairness, that is the concern being expressed by most parents and families in those schools that are affected. I understand the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy McEntee, would have made statements recently about the national therapy service and how it is highlighted in the programme for Government that this scheme will be rolled out to all schools. However, can we get down to the phasing of it, how she will staff it, and whether certain roles will be prioritised, be those speech and language therapy, physio, nurses or whatever the case may be? Is there any kind of roadmap for how we are to staff it and successfully implement it in all the special schools?

Sentiment score: 0.23

I am one of the best people to come into the House and criticise and give out about how we are implementing or not implementing things, but in fairness, in this response, it is the first time it has been clarified for me that the three special schools in Cork have been fully staffed. That is the first time I have heard that or seen it in writing. That is to be welcomed. The pilot scheme in Cork has worked if we have managed to fully staff it. Whatever about the outcomes for people availing of the service, the fact we have appointed all the therapists who were required in those three schools needs to be deemed as some bit of a success. I make that point, not in a condescending way. Typically, we are in here, and I was in the Chair earlier, listening to recurring issues of not getting home help for people, or the resources or money being allocated but being unable to get the staff, but in the case of the three special schools on the initial pilot scheme, we have fully staffed them, which is welcome. The difficulty I have with the response is that it is stated we will continue to roll out the service on a phased basis. There is no end time to a phased basis. It is stated in the reply that it is commencing in 2026-2027. Are we working towards the end of the decade here? What is the target for appointing the remaining therapists? I welcome that we are prioritising OTs and speech and language therapists in particular. It is also stated in the reply that further disciplines such as physios may be included. I am not an expert in this field. I was a teacher but I am not an expert in therapies. Will the Minister of State expand on why we are prioritising OT and speech and language over physio? That is what this answer implies. The only request I ask the Minister of State to take back to the Minister, Deputy McEntee, is to give us some roadmap for full implementation of this because, as I said, most of these families have suffered the best part of a decade of no service or, at best, little service. It is important that we give them some type of light at the end of the tunnel.

Sentiment score: 0.16