Last Sunday, I and a number of other public representatives met a large group of parents of children with Down's syndrome. They were frustrated and angry at the lack of general services for their children, particularly speech and language services. They pay for these services themselves, up to €40,000. Is it not time that all of these services were made available directly to these children in order that they have immediate access to speech and language therapy on a one-to-one basis? Will the Taoiseach commit to meeting this group with the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins? Will he commit to providing once-off funding in the year of up to €40,000 to cover the costs they now have to carry by themselves? There is a crisis here and these parents feel their children are being abandoned by the State.

I would commit to meeting the group, subject to varying commitments. We fully accept the need to overhaul access to therapy services. I would say that we are rolling out for the first time the therapy and education service, beginning with 45 special schools, hopefully starting in this academic year, and then all 145 special schools for the 2026-27 school year. After that, we will expand it to the mainstream school system. Obviously, we have to progress it because of recruitment and so on and we are expanding the number of placements. On top of that, we are developing a different assessment of need process, which the legislation published yesterday was designed to streamline but also to free up therapists to provide services as opposed to being locked up in an assessment process. Then we are looking at specifics around autism and so on. I take the Deputy's point about Down's syndrome. Some areas of special needs feel neglected with how things have evolved, so I understand the point.