Parents of children with special needs have to fight for everything. It is a rollercoaster of anxiety and stress. Early warning signs usually show around six months, but support of relatives and friends suggest it is a little bit slow and it will come right. However, at 12 months, things like a vacant stare or little or no baby babble spark real concerns. The anxiety, stress and sleepless nights for parents start in a real way. By 18 months, missed milestones confirm a problematic future and the fight for parents begins in earnest. The first hurdle is the assessment of need. Thousands of people and children, over 20,000 of them, are on waiting lists: over two and a half years of waiting at a time when a diagnosis and treatment is absolutely vital. Parents who can manage it deprive themselves to scrape together the fee for a private assessment.

Armed with that diagnosis, the fight begins again for services. The next hurdle is a massive waiting list for those therapy services, such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and so on. By now, parents are running on empty, stressed out, anxious and not sleeping. Despite the need for two incomes to keep a roof over their head, one parent frequently has to give up work. This is more stress - financial stress. The next hurdle is a struggle to get their child an appropriate school place. They may have to go to the High Court to get that. The eventual place may be anything up to 25 miles from home. However, then there is the huge relief of getting an appropriate school place. Trained special needs assistants and trained special needs teachers are angels. The child begins to respond and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Last week, the Government turned off that light. It created fear, trepidation and confusion. The so-called pause last week was a smokescreen to buy time. Last night's climb-down is a sticking plaster at best. Parents of children with special needs and special needs assistants need to know that the criteria for getting a special needs assistant will include not just primary care needs but, for instance, a child with autism who is overwhelmed or an anxious child who is unable to learn without adult support and without help with communications and for social understanding-----

Thank you, Deputy. Taoiseach to respond.

-----or emotional distress or sensory difficulties. The parents-----

Time is up, Deputy. You will be back in. The Taoiseach will now respond.

-----and the special needs assistants need a guarantee that criteria will be changed and widened.

The Deputy's time is way over. Taoiseach to respond.

First, in respect of the assessment of the need issue, we need a changed approach. An assessment of need is not required for many services. It is our view-----

That is not the question.

I have three minutes. The Deputy started off with the-----

You are deflecting the question.

Deputy, allow the Taoiseach to answer. That is not how this works.

The Deputy started off by raising the issue of assessments of need. I was making the point that our view is that the therapists should be directed at providing services. That is the change that needs to happen in the system. That is why the Minister has brought forward legislation that is designed to do that and to release the resources to support children with special needs in a more direct fashion. That is the approach we are going to take.

On the issue of special needs assistants, well over 25,000 will be allocated for the next school year. That is a significant expansion on the 2025 figure and on where we have been over the last number of years. That is a story of expansion. The school-based therapy service is a further addition to the special schools. For the first time ever, about 90 therapists will be recruited in a comprehensive way for special schools. Additional special education teachers are being appointed. Thousands have been appointed. There has been a dramatic increase in their numbers and in the number of special classes. Thousands of additional classes have been provided over the last number of years. An objective analysis or assessment shows this expansion and this increase in investment. That will continue. Parallel to that, we want to develop supportive services for teachers in mainstream classes, in special classes and in the system more generally.

With regard to special classes, the ratio is well established and has been in place since 1998. It is one teacher and two special needs assistants for a class of six children. That is the ratio in the teaching schedule. That is accepted. On the allocation of SNAs more broadly, schools make submissions to the special educational needs organiser, SENO, and determinations are arrived at. These very often depend on the number of children requiring care and support in the school. Decisions are made and, if schools disagree, they can appeal those decisions. That is the structure. We are bringing in a redeployment scheme to give safety in employment to special needs assistants. A lot of progress has been made in this area compared with where we were ten years ago or even five years ago. That redeployment scheme was well negotiated. It will give the security required.

The Taoiseach has had four opportunities to answer the core question in relation to this issue this afternoon but he has refused to do so. He has taken the opportunity to deflect at all stages in the four contributions. As anybody involved in education, and particularly in special education, knows, the core question in this whole debate is the criteria that are to be met if a child with special needs is to get the assistance of a special needs assistant. The current criteria are too narrow. They are outdated and primarily based on primary care needs. They do not include children who have social misunderstanding, children with sensory difficulties or children who are on the autistic spectrum or some of the other spectrums. Everybody involved in education knows that is the key question. What we here, the public, parents and special needs assistants want to know is whether those criteria will be used and extended into the future.

It is a team-based approach. Special education teachers are recruited-----

Will the criteria be changed?

-----to deal with the very issues the Deputy has raised.

Will you answer the question? You are deflecting.

Deputy, I did not interrupt you. I am not deflecting. You are not even listening to the response.

You are refusing to answer the question.

The minute I stood up, you started shouting back at me. Would you listen so we can at least have a courteous exchange of views? Special education-----

Will you respect the TDs in this House by answering the question?

I think that is it.

Deputy Healy, resume your seat. We will move to the Order of Business.