'Support needs to be in place': Decisions too slow regarding children with additional needs

Decisions regarding the provision of services to those with additional needs are being taken too slowly and need to be taken ‘as a matter of urgency’, the Cork North West TD and chairman of the Disability Matters Committee in the Oireachtas has said.

Michael Moynihan was responding to a story published in The Echo this week in which it was brought to light that children with additional needs in Cork schools were still waiting for the restoration of therapists to their schools more than four years after their withdrawal at the outset of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

Parents fear that schools will open at the end of this month and there still will be no therapists appointed.

This was despite a promise from Disability Minister, Anne Rabbitte, in September 2022 that they would be restored and the submission of a plan for the restoration of therapists in June for consideration by the cabinet before its summer break.

A spokesperson from the Department of Children, Equality, Diversity, Integration and Youth told The Echo that the department was working with stakeholders on a proposal, the day after the cabinet meeting.

“The support needs to be in place when the children with additional needs go into school at the end of August,” said Mr Moynihan.

“I get very frustrated when I see pieces like that,” said the TD referring to the story in The Echo.

“There’s a lot of talk about what’s available and what’s not available and we will be dealing with a lot of cases in early September because the services are simply not there for people with additional needs.

“We are obliged to provide those services,” he said.

Mr Moynihan paid tribute to St Killian’s Special School in Mayfield, which is one of the Cork schools affected, which he described as ‘very innovative and very much to the fore trying to ensure that the best possible services are available to kids that are within their school.

“I find it frustrating that the State services aren’t responding faster,” he said.