Mr. Brendan Doody:

I will address the issue of the school inclusion model. SIM was more than just the delivery of therapy supports. It involved therapists working with schools, but it also included a nursing element, SNA support and additional psychological supports through the National Educational Psychological Service. The announcement the Minister has made in relation to therapy supports just involves one element of SIM being decoupled from the SIM programme and being made available nationally as a starting point - as step one.

The nursing element of SIM never developed in the way in which it was originally intended because the numbers were simply not there. When we went to the HSE to see how many children and young people required a nurse in order to attend school, it gave us a figure of 25 nationally. We said there was little point in devoting that support just in the SIM areas. That is now at a national level, so we have-----