Simon Harris pledges to ‘ramp up’ therapies for special schools in budget

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

Taoiseach Simon Harris has promised to “ramp up” special education therapy provision in October’s budget, saying the current offering was not good enough.

The Fine Gael leader said that finance should “never be a constraint” in hiring staff to provide such therapies.

“I’m certainly going to take very significant steps in October’s budget to ramp up the therapy provision for children with special educational needs,” he said.

“This is not in a place where I would like us to be.

“And I’m very proud of much of the work with governments that I have been involved, but we must do better.

“I do acknowledge that, that’s why we now have a Cabinet committee on disability, that’s why I chair it, that’s why we’re taking steps to put therapy supports back in schools.”

He was answering a question about a Government decision earlier this month to approve a pilot to deliver in-school therapy support for children in selected special schools.

The programme will be provided by the HSE’s Children’s Disability Network Teams in 16 special schools in Cork and Dublin from September for the rest of the academic year.

Parents at St Killian’s School in Cork had expressed dissatisfaction at not being included in the pilot.

Speaking in Cork, Mr Harris said he would engage with his colleagues “to see if anything more can be done to assist”.

“What I would say is this, we took a decision, indeed we took a decision this month to begin the process of putting therapies back into special schools. I think this is really important.

“When I was minister for health, myself and Richard Bruton, minister for education, we rolled out this in a number of schools across the country – it works.”

He added: “Of course you have to start somewhere and we have started with a number of schools now with a view to growing that number as quickly as possible.”