I thank the Minister for presiding over the opening of Harcourt Educate Together National School tomorrow. It will be a really important day for the people who campaigned for the school in the first instance and for the school community and the people who live within the school's environs.

In my constituency of Dublin Bay South, there will be three formal openings of Educate Together schools that I suspect which Minister will attend. Those schools are Shellybanks Sandymount Educate Together, Harold's Cross National School and Harold's Cross Educate Together Secondary School. These new schools will deliver new special school places. For the first time, I have seen a senior Minister for education prioritise this matter. The programme for Government assures the direct delivery of therapists in special schools. Will the Minister confirm that mainstream schools will also be part of this programme? The National Council for Special Education has run a very successful programme of direct delivery of therapists. That could make a massive difference, take the pressure off teachers and deliver the services we know so many children need.

I look forward to attending the opening of Harold's Cross school and, I hope, of many others in the Deputy’s constituency as we work to provide education for our young people. It is really important that we have therapies in our schools. Children spend so much of their time in school, it is important that they have access to therapies while there. The Government's very clear commitment is that this will be rolled out. Progress has been made to date. The work that is being done at the moment now will initially focus on our special schools and make sure that those with the greatest level of need can access therapists. I am very clear that this has to be rolled out to our special classrooms as part of our overall mainstream education system. It is important that we can provide these services to those who need them when they need them. However, it is also important that teachers, their peers and younger children in classrooms and their parents will benefit from them as well. This plan is being developed. It is very much my intention that it will start in special schools and that it will be rolled out to the special education classrooms in mainstream settings in which many students with additional educational needs are being educated as quickly as possible in order that they can benefit from the therapies in question.