2026-02-24

The Government's plan to take away special needs assistants from vulnerable children was met with massive public anger. Last night, we held a public meeting against the Government's proposed SNA cuts and more than 1,000 people turned up - parents, SNAs and teachers all calling out Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for their cruel treatment of children. They are now determined to fight back against this, tooth and nail. Last week, in the face of this anger, the Government announced that it had called a pause to its plan to cut SNAs and late last night, it announced what amounts to an extension of that pause, acting only to buy itself time and alleviate pressure on the Government. Of course, there is relief among parents and schools that there will be no cuts this September and that much-needed additional funding will be provided, but that is not the end of the story because parents see right through the Government's ploy. They know that the Government has simply kicked the can down the road for another year. They know that the Government's approach is a cynical bean-counting exercise and that the needs of children do not even come into it, which is shameful. Parents and schools now demand fundamental change. They demand that the Government recognise, respect and value the full role of SNAs. By seeking to restrict the allocation of SNAs to a very narrow range of primary care needs like toileting and medicine, the Government is knowingly seeking to limit access to SNAs and to pull the rug from under children who desperately need support. The Government needs to accept that learning, emotional and behavioural difficulties are also primary care needs. This is the support SNAs provide day in and day out. Despite the Government's announcement last night, its threat to cut SNAs remains on the table. This is a tactical retreat, not a change of heart. The stories shared with us at last night's meeting were utterly heart-breaking. One mother speaking through her tears said, "How dare the Government even consider pulling SNA support from our children?" Another said, "I'd like the Minister to come to my home even for one day to see what it's like when a child doesn't get the SNA support they need - the frustration, the helplessness, the anger." Parents, SNAs and teachers have all said that the Government has crossed a line here. They do not want an extended pause; they want these cuts taken off the table for now and for the future. They want to know that no child will lose the SNA he or she depends on and they want the Government to deliver a comprehensive response to the needs of their children. They want respect. Caithfidh an Rialtas fáil réidh lena phlean ciaradh a dhéanamh ar chúntóirí riachtanas speisialta. Ní sos atá ag teastáil, nó é a bheith curtha ar an méar fhada, ach scrios iomlán ar an bplean. Ní mór don Rialtas a chinntiú go bhfaigheann gach leanbh le sainriachtanais an tacaíocht atá ag teastáil uathu. Comments today from Ministers have only added to the anger of parents and SNAs. Ministers lined up to say it was a communications, sequencing or cliff-edge problem. They are incapable still of accepting the Government's plan was wrong. It was wrong to treat children this way. Can the Taoiseach accept that a new departure is needed, not a temporary pause, but a child-centred approach, built on respect, security for SNAs and an end to the constant stress and worry endured by parents?

Hear, hear.

Ar dtús báire, ní aontaím in aon chor leis an Teachta. Ag déanamh áiféise atá sí. Má fheicimid ar an scéal ó 2021 amach, tá an uimhir SNAs sa chóras agus sna scoileanna ar fud na tíre ag méadú bliain i ndiaidh bliana. Tá an méid infheistíocht ag méadú chomh maith, bliain i ndiaidh bliana. Is léir, maidir leis an Rialtas a bhí againn roimh an olltoghchán agus an Rialtas atá againn anois, is é an meon atá againn ná i bhfad níos mó infheistíocht a chur isteach do leanaí le riachtanais speisialta. Sin bun agus barr pholasaithe agus aidhmeanna an Rialtais.

Ní leor sin.

I understand where the Deputy is coming from. She speaks of cynicism. She personifies cynicism in her approach to politics and issues. She does not deal with them substantively or in any considered way. The bottom line is this. If we take special needs assistants alone, in 2020, there were 16,000 special needs assistants. Starting next September, there will be more than 25,000 special needs assistants. The number has gone from 16,000 to almost 18,000 in 2021, 19,000 in 2022, 20,000 in 2023, 22,000 in 2024, 23,800 in 2025 and more than 25,000 in 2026. That is not cutbacks or pulling back. That is not taking special needs assistants away from vulnerable children. That is allocating more resources. It is the same across the board in terms of special education. Investment has been very significant over the past number of years. From a position where, prior to 2020, there were very few special schools and none at all in the previous five or six years, we have established 16 new special schools since 2020. Some 28% of the budget is now allocated to special education and we have up to 30,000 students in special classes and special schools. The investment made is very considerable and will increase. One of the reasons is that there was a significant increase in the number of children and young people identifying with a disability in the most recent census, as opposed to the census prior to that. It is a very significant increase. That is impacting on our schools and demand. We are correct in that we need to finish off the work that has been done on the redeployment scheme. A lot of work was done on that with all the partners and stakeholders in education. That will give safety and security of tenure to special needs assistants, as we did for teachers many years ago. There was a redeployment scheme in place for teachers. As regards the teaching allocation, as the Deputy knows, every September, depending on the numbers in a given school, teacher numbers will either increase, decrease or stay the same in that school. If there is a reduced number of pupils in September and the school does not meet a certain cut-off point in terms of pupil-teacher ratio, it loses a teacher. If it is above or at that level, it gains teachers. The same applies and has always applied to special needs assistants, insofar as the needs of children in a given school have to be assessed, and should be assessed, on an annual basis, because things change. Need either increases or it can decrease. That is logical and natural. What transpired here was there had not been a comprehensive review for quite a number of years and the National Council for Special Education embarked on one. In our view, from a Government perspective, we believe the building blocks should be in place first - the redeployment scheme, the workforce planning and a new circular, and in addition to that then, continued allocation of resources to a needs-based approach.

What the Taoiseach has given us is a demonstration of a complete unwillingness to accept realities on the ground. In fact, I would say his response was gaslighting parents and SNAs.

Hear, hear.

Please.

Ah, stop. The Deputy spends her time at it.

The Taoiseach needs to know that those parents, children and young people who rely on their SNA to participate in school life and learning, to stay at school, to build confidence, esteem and relationships and who require behavioural regulation need to have the security of the SNA. They cannot live on a wing and a prayer from year to year, hoping against hope that the SNA is not taken away. The Government attempted to remove SNAs from schools. That is what it attempted to do. Parents and SNAs have fought back and they are telling the Government now very clearly that there needs to be a new departure and it needs to accept in full the role of SNAs.

Thank you, Deputy. The Taoiseach to respond.

It needs to accept the reliance of children and young people to function and to operate-----

The Taoiseach to respond, Deputy.

-----within the system on those SNAs. It needs to announce not a pause-----

Time is up, Deputy McDonald.

-----or a review of a review but a complete reversal of this disgraceful policy.

First of all, the Deputy has just articulated an empty soundbite - "a new departure". What does the Deputy mean by "a new departure"?

It was just set out for the Taoiseach.

I am none the wiser as to the Deputy's new departure.

If the Taoiseach listened-----

Please, Deputies.

There is nothing to what she is saying. This is an opportunity to have a go; fair enough. That is what the Opposition tends to do.

Wow.

What we are saying is that we are coming forward with the redeployment scheme and a new circular. I am open to discussion on the role of an SNA but the role of the SNA is primarily for the child, not the school.

Let us have these discussions-----

Tell yourself that.

Would the Deputy please allow the answer?

-----which cannot be forever debated in empty soundbites.

Wow. The Taoiseach is arrogant.

The child comes first. Do not mind your "wow". The child comes first all the time. The Deputy is not in the Gaiety School of Acting now.

He is an arrogant man.

Deputy, please do not interrupt.

The Taoiseach is one arrogant man.

The bottom line is it is a serious issue for children-----

Oh, it is.

-----and as far as I am concerned-----

Deputy McDonald has had her time.

-----we must focus on allocation on a child-based approach and a needs-based approach.

I am sure parents are watching this to see the Taoiseach's arrogance-----

I call Deputy Ivana Bacik. Deputy McDonald is out of order.

Everyone on this side of the House is as familiar with the issues as Deputy McDonald is. She does not have a monopoly on it and she should not pretend she does.

Before we begin, I again express the Labour Party's solidarity with Ukraine as we mark the fourth anniversary today of Russia's full-scale invasion. As Ukraine enters its fifth year under Putin's brutal bombardment, our thoughts today must be with all those bereaved, injured or displaced by this horrific war in Europe. Last night was the latest climbdown in the special education saga. SNAs, principals, teachers and parents who spent a week in fear now know that their children will at least not lose SNA supports this year. That relief is thanks to them and their insistence that the Government must listen to their campaigning and advocacy. Unfortunately, our school communities are having to get good at campaigning. In a year, they have had to mobilise for their SNAs, caretakers and school secretaries and the Labour Party has supported school communities every step of the way. These SNA cuts were first raised in this Chamber by my Labour Party colleagues, Deputies Eoghan Kenny and Mark Wall. While we welcome the news late last night that there will be no immediate SNA cuts this September, the Government's latest U-turn raises further questions about how such drastic reductions were signed off on in the first place. It is was the Taoiseach's Government that directed the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, to carry out this review. It approved the approach and so, as we know, schools received letters without warning telling them they were losing a classroom lifeline. Some were threatened with a cut to half their SNA staffing. All were threatened with cuts without warning or consultation and only after a national uproar did the Government reverse course. This is not a good look for Fianna Fáil. The Taoiseach's party used to have a good story to tell on education, with Donogh O'Malley's achievements, for example, which I have always acknowledged. Fianna Fáil used to have a vision on education but now when we think of Fianna Fáil, or indeed Fine Gael, we think of prefabs, paused renovations, poor pay for school secretaries and caretakers and now this. While this €19 million buffer has bought the Government 12 months, schools have no long-term certainty because the Government has not actually fixed anything. It has merely kicked the can down the road. It has kicked the problem into next year, hoping, no doubt, that the anger will fade. I can tell the Taoiseach now, and we know it in the Opposition, that it will not fade. We already have a special education system lurching from crisis to crisis. We already have parents who are exhausted, worn out, having to fight so hard for the supports their children need. They and the schools need certainty and clarity, but we have been coming up against brick walls in trying to get clarity from the Taoiseach. We have specific questions. Where is this €19 million coming from? Is it being pulled from the already stretched special education teacher allocation budget? What happens to the schools that are due an increase in SNA posts next year? Where are the additional SNAs coming from? How will this redeployment scheme work? Will the Taoiseach guarantee that these are new posts, not taken from other classrooms? A pause is not a plan. This is just an extended pause. Schools and children need clarity. Will the Taoiseach provide it?

First of all, as we have outlined already - I said it last week in response to Deputy Bacik - any additional SNAs that were identified by the council as being required by a particular school will get this in the context of that review, so they will get that. The funding is additional to the education budget and will not be taken from any other part of the education budget. It is not an initiative without a plan. The Government never signed off on this at a governmental level, and I would just make that point to the Deputy. The Government did not sign off on this in terms of the 550, and the scale and the impact of it. When the Government saw the impact of this, it considered it and decided not to go ahead with what was being proposed, and that there will be no reductions in the next school year, and that prior to anything happening, there is a redeployment plan, which, by the way, was sought by the unions - in my view, correctly so. Teachers have had that since the late 1980s. I think it was Kieran Mulvey who negotiated that, with others, on behalf of the teacher unions back then. If schools reduced their numbers, teachers could be redeployed to other schools. If children with special needs are reduced by a natural process, and move on to second level or whatever, the SNAs, rather than being made redundant, will be redeployed to another school as close as possible to the school where they operate. That is a good, positive thing. It is very positive and progressive. In terms of workforce planning, there is an issue, or perhaps not an issue, but we need to take care to protect SNAs and that they are not asked to do everything in a school. Normally, the process is that the school says it has such a cohort of children in the school who require care and support, and it will require so many SNAs. That gets reviewed or assessed by the National Council for Special Education, and it makes a deliberation on that. There is a process for doing that. It has a panel, which can hear appeals from schools. That is normal, and it has been happening. What has happened in the last two to three years is that only schools that submitted for an increase were considered by the National Council for Special Education. There was not an overall review. An overall review was initiated, but before the outcome of that was comprehensively brought to a conclusion, action was taken in terms of what happened with correspondence going out to schools and so forth. Out of that, many schools gained, and some would have stayed the same and will stay the same. There will be no reductions next year. We will have the workforce planning, which has to happen, and is a good thing. There is also a new circular, which will have some changes compared to the 2014 circular, and the redeployment scheme. It is only then that we should look at a review process. Again, that is with a view to having consideration of the children who need the support. They have to be uppermost in our consideration.

It is extraordinary to hear the Taoiseach say that the Government never signed off on this. It was Government policy. Government Ministers were out defending it all last week. The Labour education spokesperson, Deputy Eoghan Kenny, was on "Prime Time" last week against the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, on this very point. It is extraordinary to hear the Taoiseach now seeking to deflect blame and responsibility. It was Government policy. It got the NCSE to implement it. There is a question here for special educational needs organisers, SENOs, as well. Where does this leave them? There is a fundamental lack of coherence in Government decision-making that is so visible here. No matter how much the Taoiseach says this money is extra and schools will be reassured, there is a fundamental lack of coherence and vision. Meanwhile, there are nearly 200 schools that were facing a cut in SNA allocation last week and are now waiting to see if they will, in fact, be able to keep their SNAs and what that will mean for education planning overall. As the union Fórsa has said, this is a sticking plaster. This €19 million is a sticking plaster to disguise and mask the lack of coherence and the attempt to deflect blame to others.

Thank you, Deputy, Taoiseach to respond.

The Taoiseach needs to take responsibility for this fiasco, and take it now.

I will take responsibility for the fact that well over 8,000 additional special needs assistants have been allocated to our schools since 2020. Let us have a sense of perspective here. Less of the rhetoric and the doomsday language.

Oh no, we have not done that.

Stop, please.

I did not interrupt the Deputy. I would appreciate if I had the same opportunity. Well over 8,000 additional special needs assistants - that is not cutbacks, that is expansion, at an exponential rate. There is huge, growing need. We need to analyse that and reflect on it. That is why we are bringing a therapy-based service into our schools. That is an important intervention and I think one of the more significant decisions that this Government has taken, that there will be a therapy-based service in all our special schools and then moving into the mainstream schools. Because SNAs will not be able to do everything, and let us not pretend they will be able to do everything, as has been suggested by the Opposition.

We never said that.

Yes, you have.

Please.

I am very clear about this and very focused and I have a very clear idea because I have been working on this all my political life, so I know a fair bit about it. What I am simply saying is that we need additional supports, but we need to have multidisciplinary supports, in my view, in our schools, to help children in a more comprehensive and holistic way.

Can we get a medal for the Taoiseach?

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.

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.