Promises, Threats and Ticks: Budget 2027 and What Was Delivered for Autistic Children and Families Since Budget 2025

Budget 2027 was announced on Tuesday, 6 October. Before the new promises are laminated and pinned to the wall, I wanted to set them beside the last two: what was promised to autistic children, disabled people and their families since Budget 2025, what was threatened, what was actually delivered, and what Budget 2027 has now added.

This is a tick-box exercise, deliberately. Not the kind that laminates a strategy, but the kind a parent does at the kitchen table: was it done, or wasn't it?

The key: ✅ delivered 🟡 partly delivered or too early to say ❌ not delivered ↩️ reversed ❓ unclear 📣 announced in Budget 2027, not yet delivered

A note on method: this is drawn from Government announcements and news reporting between October 2024 and October 2026, including the first reporting on Budget 2027. Figures are as reported, and where sources disagree or I couldn't confirm something, I say so. Budget figures are announcements: they get a tick only when they turn up in a classroom or a bank account.

1. Special Needs Assistants

• ✅ Budget 2025: 1,600 new SNAs. Announced in October 2024 alongside 768 special education teachers, taking SNA numbers past 23,000, the highest ever. Allocated for the 2025/26 school year.

• 🟡 Budget 2026: 1,700 new SNAs. Announced in October 2025, mostly to staff around 4,000 new special education places. The posts are for September 2026, so it is too early to confirm they were all filled.

• ↩️ The threat: SNA cuts. Early in 2026, an NCSE review of SNA allocations meant almost 200 schools were told they would lose SNAs from September (reports put it at between 187 and 194). After a backlash from parents, schools and unions, the review was paused in February, and the Government confirmed there would be no reductions for 2026/27, with an extra €19 million.

• 🟡 The follow-up. In June 2026, the Government said no school would lose more than one SNA a year from September 2027, and published an SNA workforce plan. That is a limit on cuts, not an end to them. The review mechanism is still there.

• 📣 Budget 2027: 2,339 new SNAs. Announced on 6 October as part of a €56 million increase for special education, which the Government says will take SNA numbers to 28,000. There is no new promise that the review mechanism behind this year's threatened cuts has gone.

The verdict: more SNAs than ever, and a cut that was only stopped because families made enough noise. That is exactly the bottom-up change I wrote about this week.

2. School places

• 🟡 New special classes and special schools. Ministers reported 994 new special classes and 9 new special schools opened in the year to September 2026. That is real growth.

• ❌ A place for every child. Nearly 8,000 children applied for special class or school places for September 2026, against a plan for about 3,000 to 4,000. The Minister acknowledged a "small cohort" of children still had no school place when term started. The size of that cohort was not published.

• 🟡 July Provision 2026. It went ahead, but applications had to be reopened in May after families and schools missed a one-week window.

• ❓ Reduced timetables. The most recent figure I could find is 1,275 pupils on shorter days in 2023/24, 821 of them with special educational needs. I found no newer figure. If we don't count it, we can't fix it.

• 📣 Budget 2027: 1,353 special education teachers and capital funding. The teachers are for special classes, special schools and mainstream, taking the total to about 24,000. €1.6 billion of school capital funding includes extra accommodation for special education. There was no published number of places for September 2027, and no commitment that every child will have one.

• 📣 Budget 2027: the Access and Inclusion Model for under-3s. From September 2027, AIM supports in early years settings will be extended to children under 3. This is a genuine gap closed, on paper.

3. Inclusion and the law

• ✅ Review of the EPSEN Act 2004. Published in June 2025, with 51 recommendations from over 28,000 responses.

• 🟡 The plan to act on it. An implementation plan was published at the end of July 2026.

• ❌ New legislation. I could find no bill to amend the EPSEN Act. The parts of the 2004 Act that would give every child a statutory education plan have still never been commenced, 22 years on.

• ❌ Budget 2027 and EPSEN. I could find nothing in the Budget 2027 announcements about funding the EPSEN implementation plan or commencing the rest of the 2004 Act.

4. Disability services and Assessment of Need

• ❌ Assessment of Need within the legal six months. At the end of June 2026, 23,282 children were overdue an Assessment of Need, up 6.9% in three months. Only about 9% of assessments between April and July were completed on time. More than €23 million has been spent on legal costs from families taking cases since 2021.

• 🟡 The fix: change the law. The Disability (Amendment) Bill 2026 was introduced in the Dáil in September. It would let the HSE close and reinstate applications and change how assessments work. Whether that clears the backlog or just redefines it is the question families will be watching.

• 🟡 Children's Disability Network Teams. Vacancy rates fell from 29% in 2023 to 18% in 2025, but 16 of the 93 teams still had more than 30% of posts empty. About 7,500 children were waiting for first contact in April 2026, and almost 4,800 of them had waited over a year. The HSE's target of no child waiting more than 12 months has not been met.

• 🟡 Therapists in special schools. The new Education Therapy Service started in 2026: occupational therapists and speech and language therapists working in special schools, beginning with 45 schools, with all special schools due in 2027. On track so far, but it covers special schools only, not mainstream.

• 📣 Budget 2027: 150 more CDNT posts. Part of a €7.5 billion package for the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, alongside €15 million more for respite and 212 new residential places. 150 posts across 93 teams is under two per team, and it only helps if the posts are filled.

• ❓ Budget 2027 and the Assessment of Need backlog. I could find no new money aimed at clearing the backlog of more than 23,000 overdue assessments. The Government points to this year's €20 million waiting list initiative and the Disability (Amendment) Bill. Neither is a plan to meet the six-month legal limit.

5. The cost of living

• ✅ Budget 2025 lump sums. €400 for people on Disability Allowance, €400 for carers getting the Carer's Support Grant, double Child Benefit and a Christmas bonus. All paid.

• ✅ Budget 2026 rate increases. €10 a week on core welfare rates including Disability Allowance, and Domiciliary Care Allowance up €20 to €380 a month.

• ❌ Help with extra costs in 2026. Budget 2026 had no lump sums and no energy credits. For families whose costs are higher because of disability, that was a real cut in support compared with the year before.

• 🟡 The Carer's Allowance means test. From July 2026, a carer who works can earn up to €1,000 a week (€2,000 for a couple) and still qualify: the largest increase ever. But the means test still exists, and family carers' groups are still asking for it to go.

• ❌ A cost of disability payment. Disability organisations have asked for a dedicated weekly payment to cover the extra cost of disability. There is no such payment.

• 📣 Budget 2027: a cost of disability payment, at last, but once. A €500 lump sum for people getting a long-term disability payment, due in the first quarter of 2027. It is the first time a cost of disability payment exists at all, which is real. But it is a one-off, not the weekly payment disability organisations asked for.

• 📣 Budget 2027: €10 a week on core welfare rates. From January 2027, including Disability Allowance and Carer's Allowance. Fuel Allowance rises by €5 a week, the Child Support Payment by up to €6, and a Christmas bonus will be paid in December 2026. Child Benefit is unchanged, and I found no change to Domiciliary Care Allowance.

• 📣 Budget 2027: the Carer's Allowance disregard rises again. Up €150 for a single person and €300 for a couple from July 2027, to €1,150 and €2,300 a week. The means test stays. Family Carers Ireland called keeping it "a missed opportunity".

• ❌ Budget 2027: energy credits. There was no energy credit in the Budget 2027 documents, though VAT on gas and electricity stays at 9% and carbon tax on home heating was cut.

6. The Autism Innovation Strategy: where did it go?

In August 2024, the Government published the Autism Innovation Strategy: 83 actions across four pillars, launched by the then Taoiseach, with a lifespan of 18 months. That lifespan ran out around the end of March 2026.

Here is what I could find since:

• ❓ Its 83 actions. I could not find a published final report showing which of the 83 actions were completed.

• ❌ A successor strategy. I could find no extension, no second strategy and no new implementation plan.

• ❌ Autism legislation. AsIAm and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Autism have called for a National Autism Strategy backed by law, and AsIAm says this was promised in the current Programme for Government. No bill has been published.

• ❌ Budget 2027. I could find no Budget 2027 allocation for a new autism strategy, and no date for one or for autism legislation.

So the strategy hasn't been scrapped. It simply reached the end of its life and nothing replaced it. No announcement, no review, no next step. That's what I mean by disappearing. A strategy can be laminated, launched and photographed, then quietly time out while everyone is busy with the next promise.

That was the question I wanted answered on Budget Day: where is the next autism strategy, who is responsible for it, and when will it be law? Budget 2027 didn't answer it.

The scorecard

Counting the items from Budget 2025 and 2026: 5 delivered, 9 partly delivered, 7 not delivered, 1 reversed after families pushed back, and 2 unclear. Budget 2027 adds 7 announcements still to be delivered, 1 unclear (money for the Assessment of Need backlog) and 3 more gaps: EPSEN, energy credits and the autism strategy.

The pattern holds. Money for posts and places is usually delivered, because it can be counted and announced, and Budget 2027 follows it: more SNAs, more teachers, more CDNT posts, a first cost of disability payment. Rights, timelines and legislation are still missing: the assessment that should take six months, the plan every child should have, the strategy that should have a successor. Those are the things that change a child's day, and they are the things most often left on the wall.

Did Budget 2027 answer the questions?

• Money to clear the Assessment of Need backlog? No new money aimed at it that I could find. 150 CDNT posts help, but they are not a plan for 23,000 overdue assessments.

• A date for a new autism strategy, and for autism legislation? No.

• A promise of no SNA cuts, not just a cap on them? No. 2,339 new posts, but the review mechanism remains.

• Help with the extra cost of disability, beyond the rate increases? Partly. A first €500 cost of disability payment, once, not weekly.

• Every child with a school place in September 2027, with a number published? No number was published.

So, one out of five, and only partly. AsIAm said it cautiously welcomed the budget but that it falls well short of what is needed. I agree. I'll be watching through 2027 with a red pen, not a laminator, and ticking these only when they arrive. Change the environment, not the child.

Sources include: Department of Education and Department of Social Protection Budget 2025, 2026 and 2027 announcements; the Department of Children, Disability and Equality Budget 2027 press release; RTÉ, Irish Times, Irish Examiner and TheJournal Budget 2027 coverage (6–7 October 2026) and reporting on the SNA review (February–June 2026) and school places (August 2026); HSE figures on Assessment of Need reported in August 2026; Medical Independent on CDNT staffing (May 2026); the Disability (Amendment) Bill 2026; the Autism Innovation Strategy (2024); AsIAm's Same Chance Report 2026 and its Budget 2027 statement; and Family Carers Ireland's Budget 2027 response. Budget 2027 figures are from first reporting and may be revised; corrections are welcome.

Elaine Walsh is the founder of Autism & Me (autismandme.ie), a Waterford-based neuroinclusive education consultancy. She writes here on Universal Design, inclusion and Irish education, from the twin vantage points of the classroom and the kitchen table.