Educational assessments for children with learning difficulties is an area of concern. Many parents are forced to pay €1,200 to have their child assessed because the average school can only get one or two assessments through the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. It often falls on a school principal, and I was one myself and know all about it, who has to make the very difficult decision about which child in the school is top priority for an assessment. It does force parents to pay privately for assessments.

The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte raised this in May. I understand she said that parents would not have to pay for children’s assessments privately. I seek clarity on that. What is in place for those parents? Can parents be reimbursed and if so, how?

I know the Minister of State is prioritising this issue. In the context of her budget for next year, she is developing proposals for how we can reimburse parents who have no other option but to go privately. However, we need to get that right. We need to make sure there is adequate capacity in the private sector. We do not really have a clear read on that at the moment. There is some capacity but we do not know quite how much. We would have to make sure that any therapists were properly registered and supervised. It is something the Minister of State is pursuing at the moment and we hope we will have something in the service plan for next year.