I was delighted to see the Tánaiste’s backing for multidisciplinary teams supporting our schools. I agree it should be a programme for Government commitment. A pilot of 75 schools and 75 preschools was undertaken when I was Minister, which is quite some time ago, and that has never been extended. I admit Covid might have delayed it but it should have been. The capacity to engage with resource teachers and SNAs to extend therapeutic programmes is a missed opportunity. We have a legal right to an assessment but no legal right to therapy after the assessment is done. That results in perverse use of the resource we have available. The Fine Gael policy lab did some work with parents and there is a strong preference among parents for the kind of campus approach the Tánaiste was talking about yesterday. I strongly support the Tánaiste’s call that it must be in a programme for Government.

It is a red-line issue for me going into any new government that we would have multidisciplinary teams in our schools starting with all the special schools, of which there are about 116, and then extending it out. I am conscious of the pilot the Deputy developed at the time which I warmly welcomed. I have been a long-standing advocate for the multidisciplinary approach where all the different professionals are working together with teachers in situ. As the Deputy may know, that has been resisted strongly in the health service. The HSE in particular favours community development network teams, which I also understand to a degree, but that has not worked. Children are not getting access to therapists. We have to change. We tried the pilot and the pilot is struggling at the moment, if the truth be told, but we need all parties to the next government, whatever those parties may be, to commit to this departure from existing policy.