You are all very quiet over there.

I was privileged on Monday to visit the SAOL Hub-----

Another fact check coming.

Can we have a little order please?

More lies.

I want to talk about disabilities-----

More lies.

-----if people would give me the opportunity.

On Monday, with our local Labour representative Patrick Dempsey, I was privileged to visit the SAOL Hub in Ballyfermot Community Civic Centre run by Stewarts Care. We heard first-hand the challenges facing young adults with disabilities - the under-resourcing and lack of opportunities. As the Taoiseach knows, disabled people are at a much higher risk of poverty and social exclusion. They are more likely to be out of work and to leave education early. In 2015, I was proud to be involved in the creation of the comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities. Yet almost ten years on, Ireland still has the highest disability employment gap in the EU at almost twice the European average. There are many reasons for this, but a failure to support people to overcome barriers is fundamental to Ireland's poor outcomes. There is still no recognition of the cost of a disability and if a person takes up work, he or she may lose their medical card. However, many parents cannot even think about future employment when they are swamped with the difficulties of accessing services and supports for their children.

When the Deputy became Taoiseach, he said disability would be one of his priorities and we welcomed that. He knows this is a burning issue for many families. There are huge delays in assessment of needs for children with almost 15,000 on waiting lists. There is a lack of supports for young adults when they leave the education system. There is huge disquiet about the resourcing of additional complex needs in schools, and the chronic failure to ensure access to occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, psychologists and so on. A few weeks ago, we had a national discussion about the rights of disabled people, yet it has fallen off the political radar again. It is the last week of May and no allocations have been released yet for special needs assistants. It shows enormous disrespect for educational staff. Principals of special schools have highlighted the need for therapists to be in their schools, rather than allocated to the HSE's children's disability network teams. This mistake, introduced six years ago, is now being reversed but there are huge barriers to recruitment because they were not being offered permanent contracts. The Minister now has to go to the Department of public expenditure and reform to get sanction for what should have been obvious in the first place. There was no consultation with disability organisations about the removal of complex needs criteria from the allocation of special educational teachers. Yesterday, the Minister had to admit that an additional 1,000 teacher hours would have to be allocated. Schools are being forced to go to the NCSE to fill the gap when they do not have alternative supports. Inclusion Ireland has said that all policies should be rights proofed and child centred and this needs to be revisited.

These are the questions I have for the Taoiseach almost two months into his term. The Ceann Comhairle might allow some latitude as I was interrupted at the beginning. What has been done to address the cost of disability, and will there be a new comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities? Will the Taoiseach consult disability organisations and reverse the removal of complex needs hours from schools? Will he guarantee every child will have a place in September? When will allocations for SNAs be made? It is getting later and later every year.

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I acknowledge the work of SAOL, and people are happy to engage with that organisation. There are a couple of issues, and I would like to address each of them. On comprehensive employment and the need to do more for people with disability to access the workforce, I acknowledge that it was a former colleague of the Deputy's, Fergus Finlay, and others who set up the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities. It is quite inspiring what they have done, because it is not just access to education but crucially access to employment after. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that from September, that model or a similar one, will be rolled out to approximately one dozen more higher education complexes and institutions across the country. I think that link between education and employment opportunities is important, and we can learn much from the Trinity centre. There is also a funding allocation for that.

I am not happy with where we are on assessment of needs and neither are the Ministers of State, Deputies Rabbitte and Naughton. That is why we announced an additional €12 million last week to try to address the backlog in families waiting for an assessment of need. Many families are waiting far too long. I again acknowledge the Deputy's constructive role in the Labour Party in this area. I am pleased that, in the short term, private capacity will be used to try to help address some of that backlog. I think that may have arisen from a motion tabled by the Deputy.

A recruitment campaign is now under way for the children's disability network teams. From memory, about 161 people have been offered jobs in those teams as result of that recruitment campaign, and phase 2 of the campaign is due to commence later this year.

In respect of the special education teaching hours, the Deputy is right. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, has reminded me that, as a result of a review, about 1,000 additional hours will be announced in the coming days. There are learnings regarding this model and the lack of consultation and engagement, which the Department should reflect on. I am pleased the review is showing that some of the concerns that had been highlighted are now being addressed. The Minister of State is working intensively with the Minister for Education to ensure every child with a disability will have access to an appropriate school place this September. We are also working to put on a permanent basis the 39 therapy posts the National Council for Special Education now has sanction for.

As for a new comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities, that will be considered as part of the new national disability strategy. There is due to be a very significant engagement with stakeholders on that later this week, I think on Friday, and I have now decided to personally chair a Cabinet committee on disability. It has met twice in my seven weeks in office and will continue to meet monthly, to try to break down silos and bring people together.

I could quote statistics for extra investment and so on but that would kind of miss the point. I accept there are still very many challenges in the delivery of services here and I hope some of these measures will provide some hope to people and some positive momentum.

The Taoiseach has accepted some of the Government's failures but I would not put them at the feet of just the Department. The Minister stood here and said 33% of schools would have a disadvantage in their allocation of hours under the model that was suggested and there was no adequate consultation but the Taoiseach is working to correct that.

On the rates of people with disabilities in employment, a person with a disability is more likely to be at risk of poverty, be socially excluded or fall into addiction. Our rate of people with disabilities in the employment force is 32%. The European average is 51%, so it should be a Government priority to reinitiate the comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities. We in the Labour Party understand absolutely the power and dignity of being in work and how important that is. If the rate is 32% here and 51% in most European countries, we obviously have a huge amount of work to do, and the danger is more people with disabilities will fall out of mainstream society and not feel as empowered or as loved and cherished as they should feel.

There is sometimes a difference in the classification of disability across the EU but that does not take from the broader point the Deputy made about our participation rates of people with a disability in the workforce not being where they need to be. At a time of full employment, we need to address areas of underemployment where people with a disability would like to access the workforce. Employers need people in the workforce and the Deputy's suggestions are sensible.

I do think the approach we are taking, though, in the linkage between the educational opportunity and the employment opportunity is important. The career guidance strategy review that I published in my previous role with the Minister for Education, which talks about putting career guidance supports into special educational schools, has to be a priority and will be a personal priority of mine for the next budget.

In terms of education in general and some of the points the Deputy made about access to places, the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, intends to increase the number of special educational needs organisers, SENOs, the people organising services on the ground and organising education, from 73 to 120, which is a very important support for parents and teachers. We are happy to continue to constructively engage with any suggestions in this area.