Special education in this country is decades behind special education other modern countries. In recent weeks and months, we have witnessed the absolute shambles of the SNA cuts and the lack of appropriate school places for children with additional needs. Thankfully, the Government, in a late-night announcement on Monday, conceded to public pressure, and a promise of €19 million, and no cuts, was made. The public accounts committee has representatives from the Department of education before it at the moment. The Department of public expenditure has just stated that it does not know where the money in question is coming from. Where is it going to come from? Did the Government make the announcement because it just wanted to buy itself out of the difficulty it was in at the time?

Yesterday, one of my colleagues in the Labour Party referred to the fact that far more special education places are needed than Government has planned for and that, perhaps, 800 to 1,000 students will be left without appropriate school places. The Opposition party leaders met following yesterday's country-wide protests, and there is a groundswell of public mobilisation against the Government's disastrous handling of this matter. I know that the Government wants to build back trust and do the best it can for every child in this country. How is it going to fix this and how long is that going to take?

The Government has voted expenditure of over €118 billion. Within that voted expenditure, this additional allocation of around €19 million will be made to the Department of Education and Youth. No official should be in any way glib in that regard, because we are very sincere in respect of this matter. That money will be provided. I say this as a coalition leader and as the Minister for Finance.

I take the point that after the week we have had, trust has to be earned back. That is a fair point. People were deeply upset and hurt. I can outline the rationale and all the statistics, but what I have said is also true - people were upset and hurt. How you earn that trust back is by listening and delivering. Therefore, in the first instance, we will deliver on the part of the review that would have seen additional SNAs being allocated to schools. We will not go ahead with the part that would have seen a reduction in the number of SNAs. We will revise Circular 0030/2014, and it is a long time since then. We are happy to hear the Deputy's views and the views of others in relation to that. We will get the SNA redeployment scheme over the line.

I say the following to be constructive- I said it a moment ago, and I know the Deputy has a sincere interest in it. We in this House need to look at how we can have wider engagement on the broader policy issues. The demographics are bringing us into certain areas, as are the complexities involved. We need to have an informed discussion about the policy approach we want to take, as well as about the funding approach.