I send our sympathies to the families and friends of the young people who died and were injured in the horrific crash in Carlow last night. Such a shocking loss of so many young lives is devastating and my thoughts are with them today.

I will start with a quote:

The story for people with disabilities continues to worsen year after year. Access to therapies is simply appalling and respite care and opportunities for work for people with disabilities are very poor. The assessment of need statutory rules are continuously breached [...] We also know that the Government scrapped the mobility allowance and the motorised transport grant [...] We have been waiting for the new scheme for four years and seven months, longer than the duration of the First World War. There is no excuse for this inertia and lack of progress.

The Tánaiste might recognise those words because they were delivered by him in opposition during Leaders' Questions in October 2017. Leo Varadkar was the Taoiseach then too. Maybe the Tánaiste can help me and point to one single thing that has changed in the intervening six and a half years other than the Tánaiste entering government. The only thing that comes to mind is it has now been 11 years since those transport schemes were scrapped, or to use the Tánaiste's analogy, more than twice the duration of the First World War, and still there is no replacement. Is it any wonder disabled people and parents of children with disabilities feel not just ignored by successive Governments but actively harmed? The consistent failure to provide basic supports is not just some kind of an inconvenience, but is ruining people's lives. It prohibits early intervention, results in social isolation and increased rates of poverty and ultimately prevents people from being able to live a full and independent life.

The delivery of disability services by this Government can be summarised by one word: failure. The failure starts early when children are left waiting for assessments and then denied access to essential therapies and it continues throughout a person's life, such as when you cannot access education, are locked out of employment or cannot get nearly the amount of personal assistance hours you need. The list goes on and on. It is infuriating for people to listen to the same broken promises from successive Governments for years. When the Tánaiste was in opposition he made lots of commitments to improve services. What does he have to say about those commitments? Tens of thousands of people are stuck on waiting lists. The only thing disabled people are guaranteed access to is a long waiting list. When is this going to change?

My questions are as follows: when will the children's disability network teams, CDNTs, be fully staffed? When will a new motorised transport grant be introduced? When will the Government ratify the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?

The Deputy asked what has changed or what has developed. I will take education alone. There have been very significant developments since this Government was formed. Seven special schools have been established, and five of those are up and running. We focused on special education very quickly because, prior to that, there had not been the establishment of special schools. There are two in particular in the Cork area and a third under way. There has also been a very significant increase in the number of special needs assistants working in our schools over and above what was a very significant scheme, which I introduced back in 1998. I have had a lifelong interest in special needs education and I am very keen that we continue to improve resources.

Approximately 20,045 special education teachers will be available for allocation to schools in 2024. That is an increase of 20% compared with 2019-20, when the number was 16,626. By the end of this year, there will be 21,584 SNAs available to schools. That is an increase of more than 35%. Therefore, there has been a difference and there have been improvements in some areas of special needs provision. Back in the 2019-20 school year, that number stood at 15,000. Moving from 15,000 to 21,000 SNAs is a significant degree of progress on that front. Approximately 51,000 children participated in the summer programme last year, which was an increase of 300% over the 2019 figure. There are about 389 new special classes for this year, which gives us about 1,300 new special classes sanctioned over the past four years.

An agreement on section 39 pay and funding was reached in October. That had been raised in this House. Overall, as regards the health side, €700 million extra has been invested in disabilities between 2018 and 2023. Some 5 million hours of home support will be delivered this year in personal assistant and home support services. As regards children's disability services, approximately 800 whole-time equivalent posts in the CDNTs in recent years have been provided for in additional funding. Some 350 of those posts have been filled. There are issues around staffing vacancies due to staff movement. Remaining CDNT posts are at various stages of recruitment. People on disability allowance, blind pension and invalidity pension are €29 better off per week since the Government took office. We have brought in a range of cost-of-living supports for disability services in the cost-of-living package.

In respect of the disabled drivers and passengers scheme, which provides relief from VRT and VAT on the use of an adaptive car as well as an exemption from motor tax, approximately €80 million is provided. A new scheme is being developed. The senior officials group is meeting to bring that to a conclusion.

I will continue with another quote.

There is a very disappointing complacency - almost a smugness - in the ... response to issues of this kind. It is now standard practice and a mantra ... [to] just itemise what ... [is seen] as positives and so on but ... not deal with the hard questions that are asked.

Again, those are not my words; that was what the Tánaiste said to the Taoiseach when he fobbed him off back in 2017, just like the Tánaiste has just fobbed me off. I ask him again to please just deal with the questions I have asked him. When will the CDNTs be fully staffed? When will a new transport scheme be introduced? Am I to presume that is a "No" on the ratification of the optional protocol?

People have heard enough broken promises and enough itemisation of things like that. All they want are basic services, services the State has an obligation to provide and to which people have a right. Is it really too much to ask to be prioritised rather than forgotten, or for anybody in government to act with urgency? The Tánaiste has just listed off a few things. His long-term priority of special education needs has amounted to precisely zero special schools in Cork South-West. He referred to children's disability network teams. Not one of them is fully staffed. Pay parity for section 39 workers is still not there.

I did not fob off the Deputy.

Will the Tánaiste answer the questions, please?

What I did was challenge the assertions in the Deputy's contribution that zero had happened since the Government's formation. That is what she said in respect of special needs services generally, and I am entitled to do that when she raises what I believe to be a misleading presentation of the situation. That is not to say I do not recognise that serious issues remain, particularly in access to therapies. I have consistently said that in this House, both in opposition and in government, and I will continue to do that until I am satisfied that a sufficiency of therapies is available. It has not been for want of political will or funding. The HSE has had a model for quite some time-----

Will the Tánaiste answer the questions, please?

-----around progressing disability services, which I have had issues with and which I believe has been problematic and of a nature that has reduced children's access to therapies-----

Will the Tánaiste please answer the questions before his time is up?

-----whereas I want to increase children's access to therapies, particularly as regards special schools. I answered the Deputy's questions about CDNTs, the disability motorised scheme in terms of the work under way there, and the protocol, which the Government is examining.

Examining it for four years.

However, the more fundamental issue is to get services and to increase services.