Politics

Lucinda Creighton: Stopgap ‘solution’ reveals a system that is still failing special needs children

Ireland’s culture of knee-jerk planning and an inability to anticipate problems means the vulnerable in our society are often the ones who lose out the most

Josepha Madigan: the minister of state with responsibility for special education promised, via Twitter, that she would take ‘substantive action’ on improving access for children with autism. Picture: Julien Behal

At times, it seems futile to bemoan the inability of our political leadership and permanent government to plan ahead. Irish public life seems to be perennially destined to miss deadlines, deliver major public projects over budget and late, if at all, and simply fail to anticipate and plan for problems which have been well flagged.

Yet, unless this pattern of bad planning and failure to deliver is called out, it will simply continue to occur. ...