POLITICS: Sinn Féin Finance Spokesperson Deputy Pearse Doherty has today (Thursday) criticised new figures released by the HSE which show an increase in the number of refusals made this year for applications seeking pre-school supports for children with special needs in the county.
The figures show that there were more refusals as a percentage of total applications received for the pre-school year 2016/17 than for any of the other previous four years recorded as part of the HSE data on Special Education supports.
Deputy Doherty has said: “The data which the HSE has released today in relation to Special needs supports for children with disabilities attending pre-school here in Donegal proves that, when compared to the previous four years, the number of refusals for supports for children with disabilities have increased considerably.
“The percentage of refusal for SEN pre-school supports is higher this year 2016/17, than any of the last four years which are documented in the data this is when we take into account that only one case for this year is still yet to be determined.
“A total of 80 applications for pre-school support were received by the HSE this year, and of those applications just over 21 per cent were refused.
“This compares unfavourably compared to every other year from 2012/13 which show that the percentage of refusals for support were reducing year-on-year.
“In fact last year, the HSE received 89 applications for supports for pre-school children with disabilities, and of those 6 were refused, or just under 7% of all applications received.
“Fast forward twelve months later to the present day, and we see that over one fifth of all application received to date have been refused meaning that we can clearly see that there is a real problem in relation to the provision of pre-school supports in this county which is totally unacceptable.
“Behind every one of these figures is a child who is being failed because quite simply not enough resources are being made available to enable children with disabilities to fully engage in mainstream pre-school.
“I have been continuously working with a number of families of such children who’ve been refused access to these vital supports and I have been highlighting this matter with both the Minister and the HSE over the last number of weeks.
“I now intend to once again use the return of the Dáil to further raise this matter with the Minister because the fact that children with disabilities are now entering pre-school this September without the necessary supports in place is simply not good enough.”
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