Just before I move to Deputy Cairns, I would like to welcome the members of Kinsale Men's Shed who have been with us for the afternoon.

At the outset, a Cheann Comhairle, I want to express that our thoughts are with the families, friends and communities of the seven people who lost their lives on a road over the weekend.

This Government claims that disability rights are a priority, but the Taoiseach's words on disability have not been matched by action. The Government has found €19 million to postpone the proposed cuts to SNAs, of course not before forcing exhausted parents to once again fight the State for the support their children are entitled to. If he has not yet done so, I encourage the Taoiseach to read Ciara Reilly's Substack articles on this issue. They are incredibly informative and they are from the perspective of a mum, a teacher and a tireless advocate.

What everybody needs to know now is what is going to happen next. Instead of once again reaching for a quick fix, is the Taoiseach going to deliver the structural reform that is needed? To do that, there first must be acknowledgement that the current approach has not worked, is not working and is not going to work going forward. I think we agree that the definition of the role of an SNA is too narrow, too restrictive and does not reflect reality. This needs to be acknowledged in the upcoming review and it needs to be fixed. Disability is not just physical and disability supports should not be allocated on such narrow grounds. We know children's needs are complex and that there needs to be a level of discretion baked into the system in order to provide children with the support they need.

We also need to look at the bigger picture. This issue is part of a much deeper problem. The average adult to child ratio in our primary school classes is far above the EU average. Large classes compound the needs of children and result in less one-to-one time for kids. It is clear it is time to focus more on the recruitment of teachers. Also central to this are special education teachers. Complex needs must be reintroduced into the criteria for SET allocation. The removal of this criterion was a step in the complete wrong direction and has put children, teachers and SNAs in an untenable position. Crucially, special classes must be central to this discussion. The future of many special classes was brought into question when these cuts were announced. This pause has not given parents and teachers the certainty they need. Schools that need special classes, whether it is their first one or additional ones, need to be supported to open them and keep them open.

The Department of education is responsible for realising the constitutional right to education every child in Ireland has. It cannot continue to foist responsibility onto individual schools or the National Council for Special Education. What is the plan? Will the Taoiseach reassure children, their parents and school communities that the Government recognises that bigger picture and will change the approach?

When the Deputy says "change the approach", the approach has been of expansion. We have gone from 16,000 to 25,000-plus. Is the Deputy saying we should change that approach? I am not clear when she says we should change the approach. The Deputy said special classes were called into question. They were never called into question as a result of the letters that went out last week. We have 3,741 special classes - how in the name of God could they be called into question? Let us be factual about it. The number of special classes-----

It is not your question.

-----has increased significantly over the past two to three years and five years. The Deputy should just go through the figures - they are objectively there. They increased dramatically last year and will increase I think by 300 more again this year. I do not know how the Deputy can credibly put that out there that somebody was questioning the very existence of special classes when we are increasing them exponentially. As I said, the census data indicates significant increases in the number of young people and children presenting or identifying as having a disability. I see the same is happening in the United Kingdom. There are pressures there also. We have to deal with that and that is why the percentage of the overall education budget, which is now €13 billion and growing, is very high and rightly so. We have prioritised special education. Last year, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, did exceptional work in a very short space of time to try to close the gap in terms of the number of children seeking places. All of us on this side of the House meet parents of children with special needs, always. I never stopped meeting parents of children with special needs. I accept they have to fight a very hard battle for services not just in education but more particularly in health. That is why we are bringing therapies into the school system. Ninety will be recruited this year. I made it a red line issue in the most recent election that we would have a school-based therapy service. I believe in a multidisciplinary approach to help children with special needs. That is something we will deliver on during the lifetime of this Government. I would have no issue in sitting down with members of the Opposition and working through some of these issues. We need to very careful when we say the role is too narrow. We really need to think that through. We need more special education teachers. There needs to be more modules in training colleges in respect of special needs. There has been progress in that regard. We have a very comprehensive view of what we have to do in terms of expansion but the question is one of increased investment, not decreased investment.

The Taoiseach asked what I mean by the change of approach and I will elaborate on that. I mean a change from this, where the Government comes in and uses language like "progress", "investment" and "increases" and all of these big, grand words whereas the reality for disabled people on the ground is a nightmare. The reality of the language in your own Government's reports is very different from your own - go from "progress" and "investment" to "wasted lives". That is the difference. The approach of successive Governments up until now has been piecemeal and threadbare and it has been ruining people's lives. That is the reality. The Taoiseach said he speaks to parents of disabled children all the time. If so, then he knows they are the people he meets in his constituency who are the most at the end of their tether. I sat on the disability matters committee in the previous Dáil term. Week after week, people told us how often impossible their lives were made by a system that does not listen to them, does not include them-----

Deputy, please, your time is up.

-----and makes decisions not with them but for them. That is the change in approach that is needed. We need an overall approach to changing the situation.

We do have an overall approach but there have been 8,775 new special needs assistants in the past five years since 2020, 16 new special schools in the past five years and a new therapy-based service in our special schools, and that will expand.

Those are not words; they are facts. They are on the ground. That is what is going to happen. We have an overall approach. We have established a Cabinet subcommittee on disability to look at all aspects. Today, the Minister, Deputy Calleary, had sanction to begin a public consultation on the cost of disability. Yesterday, at the disability Cabinet subcommittee, we had a presentation in terms of a new transport support scheme for people with disabilities. We have a disabled person human rights-based-----

After ten years and 15 years-----

-----national strategy and we have had meetings with all of the organisations in respect of that. I have established a disability unit in the Department of an Taoiseach to have that overall picture of all aspects of the life cycle of a child or a person with special needs. It is very challenging, particularly in the health service side of it. That is why in the past number of years we took disability out of the Department of Health and created its own Department with the Department of children to have that overarching perspective on trying to improve-----

It is not working.

-----the lives of people with disabilities in the country from birth right through life itself.

Thank you, Taoiseach. We will move on to Deputy Seamus Healy.