Micheál Martin

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 …

Yes, you have.

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.

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 spec…

-----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 increasi…

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 s…

-----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 disabil…

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

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-----

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

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 fashi…

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

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

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

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-----

I think that is it.

The history of what?

How long have they got?

I accept that the price of rent puts a lot of pressure on people, particularly young people, and that is why we are working very hard to increase supply. There were 36,000 house completions last year. The most effective way to deal with rent prices and moderating them is by means of supply. The Deputy knows that but what is Sinn Féin's response? It is to oppose housing applications and to oppose …

-----of opposing, opposing, opposing.

The only way we can deal with rent is supply.

I salute the bravery and courage of Lisa Phillips in taking on what was a very corrupt and depraved network, as the Deputy has said. I am not clear on the files the Deputy is talking about. My understanding is that the Government does not hold any files in respect of Epstein, although I stand to be corrected on that, so we need to be more specific in terms-----

I know there was an allegation in the Epstein files in respect of a young woman being brought to Ireland but I have no knowledge of that. I have asked the Department of justice if it has any. It does not but the Garda, which is ultimately responsible for the investigation of any allegations, says it will investigate all complaints received and all allegations of serious crime, particularly, of cou…

I do not accept the premise of the Deputy's argument insofar as we have been expanding access to GP care year after year over the past number of years, particularly over the past five to six years, and before then, in terms of access for children, access for those on median incomes and so forth. There has been expansion.

Also, probably one of the biggest transformations in the past two decades has been the move to primary care centres, which did take some time in the late 2000s to get going. They had been earmarked in an earlier strategy in 2001 but we have now invested very significantly in those primary care centres. The strategic review will be published, I understand, before this summer. It will outline furthe…