Results 41-60 of 1,037,784 for in 'Dáil debates' OR (speaker:Tom Kitt OR speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Patrick Costello OR speaker:Neale Richmond OR speaker:Seán Canney OR speaker:Claire Kerrane) in 'Committee meetings'

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Violet-Anne Wynne: Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. I welcome the motion put forward by People Before Profit-Solidarity on this very important issue. I have been raising the waiting lists, specifically in Clare, for the last number of months, and I have the numbers of the first contact and those waiting on the initial contact. There are still 36 children in care who are waiting...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Anne Rabbitte: I thank Deputies for bringing forward this motion and I welcome the opportunity to speak to the House to reassure Deputies that the Government is fully committed to people with disabilities and their families. I do, of course, acknowledge that there are important challenges that we must address, many of them raised by the Deputies in their contributions, if disability services are to fully...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Thomas Pringle: I fully support this motion regarding disability and special needs provision and thank People Before Profit for raising this very important issue. First, I wish to highlight the urgency needed in the full ratification of the optional protocol of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The fact that the protocol and amendments to the Education for Persons...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Gary Gannon: I thank People Before Profit for bringing forward an excellent, timely and powerful motion with so many meaningful suggestions. To enact even half of them would make a substantive difference to the lives of countless people the length and breadth of this country. I hope many of these measures will be reflected in the budget when it is presented to us early next month. At the heart of the...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Seán Canney: I welcome the motion by People Before Profit, and the opportunity to speak on it. I am a member of the disability matters committee. For nearly five years, we have been hearing from different parents and representative groups what is going on and the way they are experiencing life, living with a disability or with a family member who has a disability. We hear it in our constituency...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Ruairi Ó Murchú: I have just been sent an email from Scoil Bhríde Shelagh, which is in north Louth. It states its main worry is that while it has had an additional school accommodation application submitted to the planning and building unit of the Department of Education since October 2023, this was put on hold after the sanctioning of its two autism classes because the Department had pulled the...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Duncan Smith: I thank People Before Profit–Solidarity for this comprehensive motion on this most important area. As Deputy Cullinane said, we could paper the walls of the Dáil with debates we have had on disability and special needs provision. The figures on assessments of needs are stark, considerable and shameful. Just under 11,000 children are awaiting an assessment of need and 110,000...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Matt Carthy: While there are a lot of failures this Government is overseeing, the failures in disability services are probably the single greatest failure. Like all the other failures, what we get from the Taoiseach is soundbites rather than solutions. My experience of dealing with families in Monaghan is a familiar story, from listening to other Deputies. Families are waiting far too long for an...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Paul Donnelly: Absolutely no aspects of supports for children with additional needs are working. There is absolutely no section of it working. I have with me a letter given to me by a constituent of mine just before the summer recess which confirms there was a 72-month waiting list for services in the CDNT in Dublin 15. That is a six-year waiting list. That is absolutely and utterly shocking and...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Hildegarde Naughton: Yes, we do.

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Paul Donnelly: It is a failure of everyone who has been involved in this service through the years if a simple thing like getting children who need a school place into schools cannot be done. We are paying people extremely good wages to do their job. They should be doing it. It is incredible that we have to set up a task force to do that. Let us give them the time and energy, however. They do not have...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Pat Buckley: I thank People Before Profit-Solidarity for bringing this motion forward. I listened to a lot of the speakers and the opening statement of the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton. Last year, in June 2023, the autism committee published a final report with 109 recommendations. The blueprint for success is there. There are 87 more of those recommendations to be implemented. They deal with...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Martin Browne: I commend People Before Profit-Solidarity. I wish to speak about a young boy in my own county by the name of Josh. His local special school could not take him on the basis that his needs were outside its remit as his condition was termed moderate to severe. Incidentally, this is the school his brother also attends. Unfortunately, this contradicts the Department’s notion that a...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl: Now we go to a Sinn Féin slot. Deputy Pauline Tully is sharing with six of her colleagues, I think.

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Pauline Tully: I commend the motion and thank People Before Profit and Solidarity for bringing it forward. It is a comprehensive motion and this is a matter that has been discussed time and again here by different groups bringing it forward, yet nothing seems to change and nothing seems to improve. The Government seems to have this approach of reacting to a crisis instead of proactive planning to address...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

David Cullinane: I commend People Before Profit on tabling this motion and allowing us to have a debate on this important issue. I was first elected to the Seanad in 2011, and one of the earliest debates I took part in was on children's disability services. All the challenges that were outlined in that debate and all the asks that were made of the Government at the time are again contained in this motion...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl: Given the importance of the matter being discussed, I considered it appropriate to allow the Minister of State to go over time in order to respond comprehensively.

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Hildegarde Naughton: I appreciate that.

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The efforts and programmes the Minister of State spoke about might make some difference. I wish that, instead of me, the parents and teachers of the children in question were here responding to what she said. They are the ones who know how the system is failing their children, despite all the efforts, promises and programmes from the Government. Like Deputy Gino Kenny said, the debates on...

Disability and Special Needs Provision: Motion [Private Members] (19 Sep 2024)

Mick Barry: I would like to use my time to try to give voice to the rage and heartbreak felt by parents across the country about the situation that the Government has allowed to develop. I will quote people from Cork to whom I have spoken today. Jimmy Lordan, a parent who wants to send his son for an assessment of need, has been told that they will have to wait two to two and half years. He said as...