Special Education: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Eoghan Kenny

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— there is an ongoing failure by the State to adequately plan for school places for children with special or additional educational needs;

— parents have resorted to sleeping outside the Department of Education to raise awareness of the lack of appropriate places;

— significant sections of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act 2004 remain un-commenced, and a review of the EPSEN Act was begun in 2021 with a public consultation in 2023 but to date no report or recommendations have been published;

— schools that have been assessed as requiring additional Special Needs Assistant (SNA) positions are being blocked from recruiting for these essential roles;

— there is no timeframe or sufficient budgetary provision in place for ensuring the national provision of in-school therapies through the Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS), building on the work of the School Inclusion Model pilot; and

— the training and supports provided to teachers, SNAs, and other educational staff have not kept pace with developments in the field of additional needs education;

recalls that:

— 126 children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) had no school place at the start of this school year in September, and the number of children accessing the Home Tuition Grant scheme due to the lack of an SEN placement has increased;

— there is no national centralised system operated by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to determine sufficiently in advance the number of additional special educational school places required;

— there are no protocols in place for the sharing of information on SEN between pre-schools, primary schools, post primary schools and special schools to support children as they advance through the educational system; and

— 14,221 children were overdue an assessment of needs in December 2024, nearly 13,000 children are waiting for initial contact with a Children's Disability Network Team, and tens of thousands of children are on primary care wait lists for treatment, adding further pressure on schools and educators to support children with additional unmet needs;

recognises that:

— parents and educators continue to have significant concerns about the current system of planning for SEN provision where schools are put under pressure at short notice to open classes without adequate resourcing, appropriate accommodation or training for staff, and with minimal specialised support; and

— 399 new special classes were announced for the 2025/26 school year earlier this month, but many children will struggle to secure places appropriate to their needs in their local community; and

calls on the Government to:

— ensure the right of every child to an appropriate school place in their general locality is fulfilled in September 2025;

— introduce a central application system for special educational places to commence for the 2026/27 school year, and develop protocols on the sharing of information at every step of the educational system;

— provide appropriate means of transport for children with additional educational needs to access their school place;

— guarantee that every school will receive sufficient funding for the full equipping of classrooms including modular builds, sensory and play spaces, and assistive technology when new special classes are opened;

— publish the finalised review of the EPSEN Act and commit to bringing forward amending proposals as necessary and to commencing the long delayed measures;

— provide a timeline for the national rollout of in-school therapists through the ETSS to provide certainty for schools and parents, and introduce play, art, music and other relevant therapies and in-school counselling where appropriate;

— lift the arbitrary cap on SNAs, and ensure that positions are funded when the NCSE has recommended a post is required, remove the 72 hour obligation on SNAs, and continue to support the professionalisation of the SNA role;

— introduce an initial teacher education programme for student teachers allowing them to complete at least one school placement in an additional needs setting, and introduce free upskilling in SEN for existing teachers; and

— ensure every teacher is fully trained in seizure first aid, amend the assault leave scheme, and develop a new position in schools of a Special Education Needs Officer.

I will start off with how interesting it is that the Government has chosen to oppose our motion so rigorously. The Minister knows as well as I do that what we are requesting is needed but I now question, looking at the Government's amendment, whether the Department realises or understands the extent of the concerns raised daily by genuine families.

Since being elected to the House in December, one of the biggest issues brought to my attention has been that of school places, or the lack thereof, and special educational needs as a whole. Today, we are tabling a motion to support the families of children with additional needs, families who slept outside the Minister's Department, protested through the streets of Cork city and established equality and education groups right throughout the country.

In 2025, no child should be left without an appropriate school place within his or her own locality. There are two important parts to that statement, namely, "appropriate" and the words "within his or her own locality." We in the Labour Party will no longer accept figures being thrown around the place like the Taoiseach did yesterday regarding the number of classes being opened in mainstream or special schools and about having the highest number of SNAs we have ever had in our system. The reality is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have led Governments for the life of this State. It is a complete failure of the State to adequately resource our schools with infrastructure, teachers, SNAs and genuine long-term supports. Now, the Department finds itself scrambling at the eleventh hour to paper over the cracks of this Government's making.

We make nine requests in our motion. They are genuine and come from parents and the various educational organisations I met throughout the country in recent months. The word "appropriate" is essential when describing the sanctioning of new school places or classrooms for children with additional needs. I was lucky and grateful to get the opportunity up until not so long ago to teach in a special educational needs setting. Unfortunately, there were students in that classroom with varying needs. It was not an appropriate setting. We need to realise that just because opening a class adds to the figure of new classes, it does not necessarily mean every child's needs are being met.

Schools in the locality are vital. The greatest thing we can do for children with additional needs is to integrate them into their communities, show them the areas they live in and provide them with support to use their amenities. However, if they are travelling long distances in the morning and afternoon, that is not possible. Parents of these children met the Minister and the NCSE just last month and were informed that there was no central application system for children with special educational needs. When I spoke to them, they were horrified by this. It is an immediate and vital request. We need to be able to track the number of children who need support. We have the data but what we do not have is the political will. The Minister controls the purse strings. Unfortunately, we do not, so we are bringing solutions forward in this forum.

Children of schoolgoing age should be a priority. I guarantee that, if I went into the centre of Cork or Dublin or anywhere else throughout the country and stopped a person to ask if he or she believed this Government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and regional Independents is doing enough to resource our schools, I could nearly guess the answer. The stories parents have shared with me and my colleagues in the Labour Party in recent months are harrowing. I have such sympathy and empathy for these families and children, but they do not want that. They want to see correct action. It should not have to come to a stage where they are forced to protest.

I was lucky up until recently to be in schools with such dedicated special educational needs co-ordinators. These are not stand-alone positions, as the Minister will know, but assistant principal roles. It is also important to note that the extra money for this role is pitiful. The role is so broad and intensive that I have seen at first hand these teachers coming in on their Easter, summer and mid-term breaks to cover the administrative work that goes with the job. That should not be the case. The SENCo role should be a stand-alone position. I spoke with a SENCo last Wednesday, who taught me previously. She said she was in the school and conveyed to me that she was "inundated, tired, exhausted and worn out", to use her words. That should not be the case. School staff are going above and beyond for their students and, more importantly, they are putting students at the centre of learning. Unfortunately, as we all heard at the teacher conferences last week, they believe they are not getting the resources from central government.

I have met several charities, educational and advocacy groups in recent months. Their requests are not being recognised. I implore the Minister to consult these groups on any new policy initiatives. They are the ones on the ground who understand the issues, are speaking with parents and students, and who must play an important role in developing policy.

Having worked with such dedicated and hardworking SNAs, I can see how undervalued they are in our education system. I ask the Minister to get rid of the 72-hour obligation on SNAs. I have seen SNAs being used for various tasks, mainly at the end of the school year, to meet these hours. They find themselves cleaning out school lockers, cleaning classrooms and doing administrative work that is not under their remit. How does the Minister think this makes an SNA feel? They do the work because they are hardworking individuals but if asked, they would all say they were undervalued and often went unnoticed in the work they were doing.

SNA provision can never be capped. If the NCSE and the SENO tell the Department that the school must be sanctioned an SNA, it must be done. I asked previously in this House about an SNA freeze. The Department and the Taoiseach assured me that no such directive had been sent out. Why did a school principal then come to me and tell me this was what the school had been told? Like many parts of the Government, there is a complete lack of accountability.

The school therapists initiative is a fantastic PR stunt. We cannot get therapists to fill our HSE roles, yet the Minister says we will roll them out in special schools.

Where is the Government getting these therapists from? Please provide the figures and information on the incentives. We cannot allow schools to believe that they are going to get therapists when it is just not possible.

In its amendment, the Government will state that 3,700 new special classes will be available across the country for the coming school year, which should ensure that every child has access to a school place in his or her locality. The three words "which should ensure" are not the most comforting or confident language that parents contacting my office want to see. It is complete guesswork because there is no central application system. The Government does not know whether these special schools will ensure that every child will get a school place in the locality. That is a fault of this Government's own making. It committed to introducing this application system in the programme for Government, but when will that be? Is it the next time academic year or will it be the academic year five years from now?

Another failure of this Government is the EPSEN Act. Failure to implement part of the Act is not acceptable. Section 13 outlines that the Ministers for education, children and health will provide the moneys and other resources as determined by the Minister for the purposes of the preparation and implementation of education plans. It strikes me that, since 2004, this has not been introduced. The Minister will have the power to provide the money needed. I do not want to hear any more percentages or a figure of how much of the education budget is going to special education. That is probably in the Minister's speech. It is not enough. There is no point denying it. Until appropriate plans are in place, do not just keep throwing money at the issue.

Introducing Bills and motions is providing solutions, so the Government cannot beat us with the "no solutions" stick. If the Government is not willing to take them on board, that is the Government's mistake, not ours. We will continue to advocate on behalf of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Deputy Ivana Bacik

I second the motion and commend my Labour colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny, who has devised this motion and tabled it with such passion and strong advocacy. I welcome those in the Public Gallery who join us for the debate. We have quite a number of parents and groups campaigning on behalf of children who have been deprived of their right to an education by the State. I will single out from my own constituency the Neurodiversity - Irishtown, Ringsend and Pearse Street, NIRP, organisation, whose representatives are here, and one of our Labour councillors, Ali Field, who is in the Chamber. Six years to the day today, Ali was protesting outside Leinster House, calling for a school place for her son James. It also happens to be Ali's birthday. Happy birthday, Ali. I hope she will hear some good news today.

I acknowledge the enormous campaigning work done around the country by many parents, local representatives and groups such as Education Equality, Involve Autism in my constituency and the national group AsIAm. They campaign tirelessly on behalf of their children, but they should not have to do so. The reason they are on sleepovers outside the Department of Education, lobbying us and in here today is because the State is failing their children. The Labour Party's motion sets out nine clear requests of the Government. If it adopted those nine requests, or even if the Minister committed today to adopting them, it would give some positive news to parents like Ali Field and others that something would be done for their children. Instead, what we have seen, as Deputy Kenny said, is a disappointing amendment from the Government. With respect, it amounts to a gaslighting of children, parents and staff to table an amendment that is full of statistics and figures but does not really answer the primary issue for parents and children who are dealing every day with the Government’s failure to vindicate the basic right of every child to an education. I think of the many parents who have told me about the battles they have been having to secure that education for their children. Theirs are harrowing stories. A mother told me of the long months on a waiting list to achieve an assessment of need for her three-year-old daughter. A grandmother is in despair because her daughter cannot get a school place for her six-year-old son. We all hear about these issues every day in our constituencies.

In my home area of Dublin Bay South, there is a huge amount of voluntary effort under way, just as there is across the country, to try to provide a means of filling the gaps that the State has left. We have seen events such as the Sensoria festival on Merrion Square; initiatives like NIRP, which worked with Dublin City Council to secure autism-friendly and neurodiverse spaces; and Ranelagh Rockets, the fantastic GAA initiative in my constituency that has been working tirelessly to provide sports facilities and sports amenities for children who have no other outlets for sports. All these groups are showing the power of community and proving that it is possible to achieve an accessible society. However, they are filling gaps left by the State.

Look at the serious gaps in particular areas. I acknowledged to the Taoiseach yesterday that progress had been made. We have seen some good examples of new special schools and special classes opening - we will be the first to acknowledge that - but there are still enormous gaps across the State. In Dublin 6 and Dublin 6W where the Involve Autism group has been campaigning, there are serious gaps in the system. Children are still being bussed out of the area at enormous cost - a human cost to them and their families and an enormous financial cost to the State - in order to access special classes elsewhere. Even where special classes or schools are set up, there is a lack of wrap-around therapeutic supports. Involve Autism asked me to raise directly with the Minister its concern about the lack of recruitment of therapists and for support services that are so badly required. Teachers and SNAs are not therapists. We need to see all of these measures in place.

I will finish by referencing a particular school in Templeogue, the Libermann Spiritan School, which opened in 2023. It was very welcome. It serves 43 children aged from four years to 18 years from across south and south-west Dublin. It does very positive work but has serious resource issues. The school principal, Vivienne Wynne, tells me she has never encountered a crisis as severe as the one unfolding now, yet the request for increased services has been denied. I understand that the Minister of State, Michael Moynihan, is visiting the Libermann school at 1.45 p.m. An invitation to local representatives only issued yesterday afternoon. We all fervently hope that that visit will be accompanied by an announcement of additional resources, particularly an increased allocation of therapy services.

This sort of last-minute action does not resolve the ongoing structural and fundamental problem for children across the State who require special education or have additional educational needs. We need to hear from the Minister a clear plan of action. Our motion with its nine clear requests sets that out and would offer hope to parents and children currently being failed by the State.

Deputy Ged Nash

I will focus my comments on the recruitment and allocation of SNAs. I recently submitted a parliamentary question on behalf of a local school in my hometown of Drogheda. Despite a clear recommendation from the local special educational needs organiser, SENO, to increase its SNA allocation, new posts were denied. That is because of some invisible and arbitrary national cap, an effective recruitment ban that is not a recruitment ban. This is Orwellian stuff, quite frankly. The answer I received from the Minister was certainly long and detailed. It went on at length about the wonderful things the Department was doing in this area but it failed to address the school's situation. It did not admit that there was a national cap on the recruitment of SNAs at all. What we will get from the Minister in a few minutes is a list of numbers detailing the investment in the sector and the additional SNAs that have been recruited in recent years. That is all well and good, but it is clear from schools in my constituency and around the country that it is not enough and that the system is broken.

My office has been deluged in recent weeks with contacts from students, staff and families at Marymount National School in Drogheda, in particular. The exasperated principal of that school wrote to me a number of weeks ago saying that students with additional needs in the school had once again been failed by a system that claimed to prioritise inclusion and support. She went on to explain that, despite a thorough review and a clear recommendation from the SENO that the school's SNA allocation be increased, the school was informed that the post would not be sanctioned. The intimation is that a national limit has been reached. The school principal described the situation as completely unacceptable, and I completely agree. The principal asked that I back her call for an immediate review of this quota or recruitment cap and demand that this school and others in the same position I am dealing with have their recommended allocations of SNAs sanctioned. That is what I am calling on the Minister to do.

The budget considerations are determining the allocation of SNAs, not the professionally assessed need. Otherwise the assessment of need of those needs is futile.

The money must chase the need, not the other way around. This is the equivalent of saying that the emergency department in our local hospital is full, so people will not be allowed to access it and can go home. This is a demand-led service and it needs to be treated as such.

The motion calls on the Minister and her Department to lift the arbitrary cap on SNAs and ensure that SNA positions are funded, sanctioned and approved when the NCSE has recommended that posts are required. As the school principal rightly said, children with additional needs do not disappear because the quota has been reached. A teacher at the same school asked me whether our children suddenly stopped having additional needs and were they not worth the same as their peers in other schools? That teacher made the very valid point that it is not only children with additional needs who are impacted when a school has an inadequate number of SNAs. It affects every child in the school because human resources are stretched to cover the gaps.

The Minister will be familiar with Marymount National School in Ballsgrove, Drogheda. It is in a DEIS area and has additional needs. The State recognises that it is an area of disadvantage and has additional needs. The teacher told me that, when a child with additional needs did not have his or her needs met, it could lead to frustration, anger, meltdowns and violence. How can an adult looking after 20 plus children keep them safe while helping a child in distress?

A separate but linked issue is that of how the NCSE and the SENO system is operating on the ground. A large school in my area with just one SNA has been trying to get a second post sanctioned for the past four to five years with no success. I do not want the Minister to tell me that this school, which is one of the largest schools in the country, does not have additional needs and can manage with one SNA. It is disgraceful. The system as it is currently constituted is failing our children and has to be fixed.

Minister for Education (Deputy Helen McEntee)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"notes that:

— a child's right to education is enshrined in the Constitution and, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, must be accessible on an equal basis with others in the community in which they live; and

— the Government is committed to ensuring that each child with a Special Educational Need (SEN) has an appropriate school place, in line with their constitutional right and Programme for Government commitments;

further notes:

— the continued significant State investment of €2.9 billion in supporting the provision of special education, a 48 per cent increase since 2020;

— the significant increases in the allocation of special education teachers and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to support children with SEN in our schools which facilitates the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) in prioritising the allocation of all of these resources to children with the greatest level of need;

— the strategic initiatives introduced to provide for the continued accelerated delivery of special class places in mainstream schools and special school places with the number of special classes having doubled over the last five years, and 16 new special schools being established;

— Budget 2025 provided for up to 2,700 additional special education placements to include, 400 new special classes in mainstream schools and 300 additional special school places;

— the fact that 399 of these new special classes are now sanctioned for the coming school year, three months earlier than previously thought, and that significant progress is being made in relation to the establishment of five new special schools and the expansion of provision in other special schools;

— the intention to use Section 37A to compel a school who has available accommodation and has been engaged with over an extended period to open special classes;

— the fact that over 3,700 new special classes will be available across the country for the coming school year which should ensure that children can access a special class in their local area;

— the significant investment in the expansion of staffing at the NCSE to assist families of children with SENs in all aspects of their educational journey, including accessing a placement appropriate to their needs;

— the establishment of the D15 Taskforce to support forward planning for special education provision in the area, and similar initiatives in other areas;

— the commitment in the Programme for Government to introduce a common application system;

— the recent publication of a circular letter by the Department of Education setting out new guidelines for schools in relation to the review of special education placements and the removal of the need for parents to seek updated professional reports where a student is transitioning from a primary special class to a post-primary special class of the same designation;

— the intention to introduce a National Therapy Service (NTS) in education to be delivered by the NCSE, the NTS will commence in special schools and subsequently extend to schools with special classes and mainstream provision, and it is intended that the service will be rolled out on a phased basis in some special schools at a later stage in the 2025/2026 school year, with a wider roll-out for the 2026/2027 school year;

— the establishment of the Educational Therapy Support Service in the NCSE, Regional therapy supports which includes Teacher Professional Learning, and follow up in school support will be available nationally from September 2026;

— sustained in-school support delivered by Speech and Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists, based on the therapy element of the School Inclusion Model is currently being delivered to 22 schools in the Eastern Region, further schools will have access to this support in the Western Region in September 2025;

— the introduction of an integrated model of enhanced in-school therapy supports pilot, in conjunction with the Health Service Executive, this pilot ensures the educational, health and social needs of children and young people are met through the reinstatement of therapy services onsite in special schools;

— the funding provided for the training and upskilling of teachers and SNAs who support children with special education needs;

— the request by the Minister for Education to the Teaching Council to include a mandatory assessed placement period in a special class or a special school setting in all initial teaching education programmes;

— the extensive review by the Department of Education of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 will be published in the coming weeks;

— the establishment of a new SNA Workforce Development Unit by the Department of Education which is engaging with SNAs, schools, unions and stakeholders, which recognises the essential role played by SNAs in our school and which is underpinned by a new national training programme for SNAs costing €1.9 million recently announced in conjunction with Atlantic Technological University;

— the work underway on a redeployment scheme for SNAs which for the first time, will allow SNAs in posts which may no longer be required for reasons such as falling enrolments, reduced care needs or changing demographics, to be redeployed to a school which has a vacant post;

— the provision of circa €264 million in 2024, to support over 21,700 children with SEN access school transport to attend school each day which is a 68 per cent increase since 2021;

— the significant level of funding and supports being provided to schools to deliver accommodation for special classes, including school building projects, the repurposing of available rooms, and the provision of modular accommodation;

— the review of the assistive technology scheme to ensure all children who need technology to access the curriculum receive it through a streamlined process which is underpinned by funding of €5 million, an increase of €2 million since 2020;

— the introduction of the Counselling in Primary Schools Pilot 2023-2025 to support children's wellbeing and mental health in primary schools and the recent introduction of the new national programme (Neart) of mental health and wellbeing resources and training for post-primary schools that is delivered by Jigsaw in collaboration with the National Educational Psychological Service;

— the Department of Education has commenced a review of the Leave of Absence following Assault scheme, and is also finalising the terms and conditions of a new Occupational Injury Scheme for teachers;

— the range of resources that has been or will soon be made available to schools to enable them to support students' behaviour, including the publications by NCSE Relate Behaviour framework, Tusla Developing a Code of Behaviour: Guidelines for Schools and the Department of Education Understanding Behaviours of Concern and Responding to Crisis Situations Guidelines;

— the extensive programme of training in place, or planned, to support schools in managing student behaviour;

— the restoration of posts of responsibility in schools and the availability of additional hours from September 2025 to assist schools in coordinating their special education teaching provision; and

— the renewed focus of the Government on the area of disability services with a particular focus on improving the delivery of services for children with disabilities; and

calls on the Government to:

— take any necessary steps to ensure that every child with SEN who needs an appropriate school place has access to one in a timely manner;

— progress work on the development of a more inclusive education system for children with SENs by supporting them to attend their local school;

— continue to expand the number of special school places, special classes and special education teaching hours as required across the State;

— improve communication and outreach to parents of children with SEN to streamline the process by which parents apply for specialist school places, reducing the burden on them and improving the timelines, including the introduction of a common application procedure;

— continue to increase investment into the area of special education to ensure that every child can reach their full potential;

— support additional schools and students to benefit from the Summer Programme; and

— ensure that the NCSE will continue to engage intensively with parents and all educational partners to continue to increase capacity.".

I thank my Labour Party colleagues for tabling this motion. I welcome and acknowledge the many parents in the Gallery, many of whom I have met in the past while.

It is a priority for me, the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and the wider Government to ensure that children with special educational needs not only get access to the school places they are entitled to, but also get access to supports in the place that is most appropriate to them. We all agree on that. I have met many parents and children, not just as Minister for Education, but over the past number of years. I acknowledge them and that all they want is to ensure that every child has access to that place and support. That is why we are here.

We have tabled an amendment in order to reference the work that has been done. Let me be clear, however, that there is nothing in the Labour Party motion that we do not agree with or support. We will work with the party. As a Government and a Dáil, we will work collectively because we have the same goal.

There has been significant investment in special education over the past number of years. It is important to say that because we have 250,000 children who are supported firstly in our mainstream schools. Approximately 97% of children who go to school are in mainstream schools. Some 250,000 of those have special educational or additional needs of different variations. Many of them are supported in our mainstream schools. Approximately 28,000 children are supported in a special class or a special school. From the parents, teachers and students I meet, the most important thing to do is to ensure that we find a place that is appropriate to each child, as what is appropriate to one child might not be to another. It is about ensuring that children have access to the place that is most appropriate to them and that they have supports in place that are most appropriate to their needs.

As many of these parents and children were, I was happy to attend the teacher and SNA union conferences last week for the first time. The issue of special education and improving teaching and learning supports for children with special education needs was a key focus and, understandably, key priority for everybody at those conferences. I wish to touch on a number of issues that arose last week but also on many of the issues raised in the motion. I will outline for the House the work that is underway on these issues and the progress that is being made. The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, will touch on the remainder of those issues.

As regards ensuring that we have the places, classrooms and spaces available for every child, the Labour Party motion rightly recognises that the NCSE has confirmed that 399 of the 400 special classes that we had committed to are being provided for in the coming year. These have been sanctioned. This has happened earlier than in 2024. Obviously, we want to do things even earlier this time next year. This means that there will be 3,900 new places available for children. I am not throwing out figures for the sake of it. These are 3,900 places that children will be able to avail of. It is important that they were sanctioned. Of most importance is that these classrooms open and that the admissions process continues as quickly as possible.

The Minister of State and I have been meeting with the NCSE and departmental officials weekly. In fact, we met just last night and will meet again next week. While I am happy that the new special classes have been sanctioned, it is imperative that these classes be established quickly and that those schools that have not done so yet - many have - begin to open admissions to students seeking special class places. I have requested my Department to write to all of the 399 schools asking them to progress the admission of students as quickly as possible. We have also asked the NCSE to support them in establishing these new classes to ensure that enrolments can happen as quickly as possible, and to provide those places to the children who are known to the NCSE and not those who are not. Of course, we need to ensure that every child who has an identified need can be supported. It is important that this work progresses quickly so that parents have confirmation of where their children will be enrolled and they can begin planning and preparing for this transition.

The necessary funding is in place to support schools in establishing these classes, for the provision of the accommodation which is also required, for the repurposing of existing accommodation, and for training teachers and SNAs as regards these new special classes.

It is a priority for me to ensure that, come this September, every child has access to that place. While special classes have been confirmed earlier this year, I know from talking to families that that is not good enough. I want it to be the situation that, come January when children learn where they are going to primary or post-primary school in September, it means every child and not just some children. That is why the Minister of State and I have insisted that the NCSE identify what provision is required for next year and the 2026-27 school year even earlier so that we can identify where that need is, engage with parents and then engage further with schools where more places need to be made available. My Department and the NCSE met school management bodies and patron bodies before Easter in a first step for forward planning of next year.

Regarding the five new special schools opening in the coming school year, all of the schools are progressing the recruitment of staff. Two schools are completing their admissions procedures and the other schools will be commencing their admissions processes quickly. Capacity has been expanded in a number of other special schools for the coming school year to ensure that we can provide placements for children in the places that are appropriate to them and in their local communities.

In addition to the 399 special classes sanctioned, it is intended that steps will be taken to compel one school to open a special class under section 37A. None of us wanted to do this but this school has available accommodation and, despite significant engagement over a considerable period of time, the school has not agreed to open a special class to date. The Minister of State and I are fully committed to ensuring that the 400 new special classes are in place for the upcoming school year but, above all, that everybody plays their part here. There should not be a choice. If there is a need and a demand in an area, then a school needs to work with us. We will work very closely with it in that regard.

On the common admissions process, we are making progress on the delivery of a common application system for admissions to schools as set out in the programme for Government, particularly for children with special educational needs. As Deputies, we are all too familiar with the stress parents face come school time in applying to many schools and, unfortunately, receiving many negative letters back. We want to remove that stress and I believe that a common application system can be a game-changer in this regard. It must and will change.

We will receive the report of the D15 task force on special education before the summer. As part of that, there was a trial process involving 13 schools at the outset that had a common application system. I understand that will expand even further come this September. My Department, the NCSE and the D15 task force are working closely to that. We hope that it will not just apply to special schools, but also to the mainstream where there are also special classrooms.

Much work has been done to ensure that children with special complex educational needs have a special school place and we accept that we need to do more work. We also need to ensure that the teaching, learning and supports in these schools are of a high quality.

I take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank our teachers, special education teachers, SNAs and every part of the school community because each person plays a part. I saw that last week at the various conferences and in meeting with our teachers, principals, our secretaries, caretakers, SNAs and special education teachers.

Everybody plays that important role.

We also understand the importance of therapy services for our children and young people with additional needs and there have been significant developments in this area in recent weeks. A new provision in schools this year is the educational therapy support service. This is about building capacity for teachers and our school staff to provide as effectively as possible for the needs of students. This service will see therapists working in classrooms with teachers. Building on this, the programme for Government clearly commits to a new therapy service where the therapist will provide direct supports to our children. I confirm that work is under way to establish what is a necessary support for our schools. We will be working to advance this as quickly as possible. I brought a memo to Cabinet only three weeks ago, setting out that my Department, working with children and the HSE, is now designing a new therapy service. We are working to make sure this can be introduced later on in this school year, starting with our special schools but making sure we move beyond special schools into our special classrooms and, of course, mainstream. We know the benefits of this. If children are accessing therapies, it provides them with a greater level of support in schools so they can work with their teachers and their teachers can work with them in a setting that is much more conducive to learning. It is about providing the supports in the place that is appropriate to them. Not only will this benefit children because they will get the direct therapies, but there will also be a level of support provided for teachers for the other children in the classroom. Parents will also be brought in. We will make sure this is a whole-of-school response and environment. It is very important and we are prioritising this so it can be introduced as quickly as possible.

It is important that we have the buildings in place, of course. Some €5.7 billion has been invested in schools throughout the country, involving the completion of more than 1,150 school building projects. These have included the provision of new and modern accommodation for approximately 7,500 children with special educational needs right across the country. This has allowed the number of special classes and special schools to grow. We are committed to making sure that where the need is growing, the demand is in place, and those provisions and buildings expand and be provided for as well.

I will touch on another issue for a few moments. It is important that we put in place training for our teachers. We heard this very clearly last week at our conferences. The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and I wrote to the Teaching Council to ensure that when teachers are being trained initially in universities and colleges, there is a clear focus on special education and mandatory placements but that there is also increased continuous training for teachers in our schools already, those who are now in our newly opened special education classrooms, to make sure they have the supports and resources they need.

We all have the same objective here. We all want to make sure that every single child has access to the school place they are entitled to and that they have the supports and provision in that place. I thank the Deputies. I look forward to working with colleagues.

Deputy Conor Sheehan

I thank the Minister for the response. I will touch on some of the points she made. Schools are very concerned that they are not sufficiently funded to open new special classes. There are issues with space, staffing, resources and appropriate sensory spaces, among other things. The majority of our traditional schools do not have the appropriate facilities for spaces that they need, like sensory spaces, to enable children with additional needs to thrive in a mainstream environment.

I am slightly concerned about the common application system being seen as a panacea. It has been in place for secondary schools in Limerick for more than 20 years, and we consistently have an issue every year with schoolchildren not getting places.

Regarding the provision of in-school therapists, a number of principals in Limerick have told me they are concerned about the number of in-school therapists proposed. I note there is a pilot coming for Limerick and Tipperary this year. One principal told me he is slightly worried they could be too sparsely spread and there is a concern they may see the in-school therapist maybe one day a week over three weeks. That is what principals have told me.

In the time remaining to me, I will talk about the principal of St. Michael’s Infant School in Limerick, Tracie Tobin, and the fact that her SET hours were cut by 12.5 this year. This school, one of only five schools in the country whose SET hours have been cut, is in one of the most deprived areas in the entire country. Ms Tobin has 127 children on her books. It is a DEIS band 1 school and it needs the highest level of support. This very successful infant school has fewer SET hours now than it had five years ago when it had half the number of children. As an infant school, many of the children are Covid children and may not have had developmental checks. They are on waiting lists for assessments of need. The school has many Ukrainian and international protection pupils, who, as we all know, can arrive on a rolling basis throughout the year. The enrolment number on 30 September, at the cut-off date, is often lower than the number at the end of the year. The Department uses the number on 30 September for the school's SET allocation.

Ms Tobin also very concerned that results from standardised testing are being used as one of the criteria. The school must return these results for second, fourth and sixth class but because it is an infant school, these classes do not exist. These are being used as part of the criteria to support the school's special education hours. As this is an infant school, the results from adjacent schools are being used but the children in Ms Tobin's school do not necessarily continue to these schools.

There is also an issue with number of children who have been diagnosed with ASD. A special class was recommended but the school was too late to apply as the closing date had passed. These children are in mainstream and require and deserve the highest level of support. The school does not have the space for them in the special class.

Deputy George Lawlor

People feel the lack of school places means that places are being just thrown at them. These are not my words; these are the words of the manager of the Collective Sensory Group, Shona King, who works closely with families and children in this area.

Children need appropriate places but that is certainly not always the case. Often, we see children in autism classes when, in fact, this is a wholly inappropriate setting for them. A child can have autism and an intellectual disability and, in many instances, these children require places in special needs classes. They also need appropriate places without needing to spend an inordinate amount of time getting to and from their schools. What is needed for these children is person-centred access. That is the key to everything – person-centred where a child may have autism and an intellectual disability. It is not just about access to a place, which we all know is hugely difficult to secure anyway; it is also about the quality of life for students – the children.

Many children have complex medical needs. Many children have an intellectual disability. Yet, once we have placed them in a class, no matter what their needs, we declare that we have met those needs even though they may not be in an environment that is conducive to their well-being.

In County Wexford, we have just two special needs schools, namely, St. Patrick’s Special School in Enniscorthy and Our Lady of Fatima School in Wexford town. Despite the wonderful efforts of the principals of these schools, Lee Rogers in St. Patrick’s Special School in Enniscorthy and Glenda McKeown in Our Lady of Fatima School in Wexford town, these schools are under huge pressure and are hugely oversubscribed, with little or no capacity to increase. In Our Lady of Fatima School, we have children with mild to moderate special needs and at St. Patrick’s school in Enniscorthy, we have children with moderate to profound needs. These are the only two special needs schools serving a county with a population of 165,000.

Wexford is lucky to have many autism units in mainstream schools. However, as I said, many of the children who are placed in classes in these mainstream schools are in inappropriate settings and their education is far from person-centred.

The issue of school refusal is also at an all-time high in mainstream schools. Once again, students of varying abilities and needs are in inappropriate settings in mainstream schools and, as a result, refusal is a huge problem. I spoke to a therapist this week who told me that in one second level school alone in Wexford, she is dealing with 16 pupils who are school refusers. In fact, they are not refusing to go to school. Rather, they just cannot go to school because their needs are not being met. These are highly intelligent, high-functioning children who can offer a lot to this country, yet we fail them time and again through the lack of provision of appropriate education.

Our country, as the Minister knows, has gone through a lot in recent decades. We have come from economic bankruptcy to a flourishing economy with billions in reserve. We have the resources to, at long last, cherish all the children of the nation equally. If we do nothing else in this House, please, let us give all our children the opportunity they so richly deserve.

Deputy Marie Sherlock

We have a large number of parents in the Gallery this morning who come from brilliant groups like the NIC Side by Side group, FUSS, the ICON FAACT group and Embrace Autism D9.

Many of these are part of the Equality in Education in Dublin Central group. These groups were set up out of sheer desperation because of the lack of health and education services for children. They have provided a lifeline to many parents, who bear the scars and the exhaustion from a health system that fails far too many of their children. A total of 23,816 children in CDNTs across the country have been waiting more than a year for psychology appointments. A total of 22,068 children have been waiting more than a year for speech and language therapy. The list goes on.

These children are being failed by the system and the education system is adding to their torture. Far too many families have to go through the same nonsense every year of applying to 20 or 30 schools. One mother told me she applied to 40 schools over a three-year period to ensure her child could access the constitutional right to an education. Jasmine, who is mother to Lewis, is here this morning. Lewis will be seven this year. He has autism. His mother said she is looking forward to him making his first communion next year, yet he has no school place. She has had 40 refusals. Crystal is also here. Her son Charlie will turn six in August. He has nowhere to go this September. He started mainstream school and, as his mother said, it was the worst year of their lives. He is now in an ASD preschool class and he is thriving but he has nothing for September. I also think of Kyle Mae. She is four and facing into her third year of preschool but, again, she has no prospect of a school place.

We have been pleading for years for a matching process whereby the NCSE would allocate children to an appropriate school place. It is not rocket science. The health system knows about these children, as does the education system, yet far too many parents must blindly apply and take up places that often are not appropriate. At a minimum, a central applications process for special classes and special schools must be rolled out across the country. The Dublin 15 pilot has worked brilliantly. Some 25 places were allocated in 13 schools in one day. We need to see that rolled out, but we understand there has been strong resistance within the Department of Education. That needs to change.

When children finally get into a school, we then see another example of how broken the system is with regard to the lack of SNAs. I am dealing with the school principals of two schools in Dublin 7 who were asked to take on two children with additional needs on the basis that they would get additional SNA support but they got no SNA support. They have been told there is a cap of 23,179 until the end of this year. The NCSE cannot do anything. The schools have been forced to put these children on rolling reduced school days over many weeks. That is simply wrong.

While we rightly focus on the thousands of children with autism-----

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Brian Brennan)

I thank the Deputy.

Deputy Marie Sherlock

This is my final point. While we rightly focus on the many children with autism, there are other children with learning needs such as dyslexia. There is an inherent hostility within the Department of Education that we have seen for many years with regard to the opening of new reading classes in schools. That needs to change.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I wish to share time with colleagues.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Brian Brennan)

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion. I advise visitors and people watching the debate that it is not usual for a Minister to come here and say she does not disagree with anything in the motion and then oppose it. What is the difference between the Government motion and the Labour Party motion, which is similar to the Sinn Féin motion that was tabled in recent weeks?

The first call on the Government by the Labour Party is to "ensure the right of every child to an appropriate school place in their general locality is fulfilled in September 2025". What is the first call of the Minister? It is to "take any necessary steps to ensure that every child with SEN who needs an appropriate school place has access to one in a timely manner". What is the difference? The Labour Party motion refers to "September 2025" and the Government motion refers to "location". The Government's position is that it is providing enough school places. That is the Minister's position. It was the Taoiseach's position yesterday that 3,900 places will be provided for a demand of 3,275. That is the Government position.

Anyone watching who represents a community or who works with parents and children knows that the reality is very different. The number of children who were notified that they did not have a school place last September was 126. If we factor in the number of children who are in receipt of home tuition, the children who must take inordinately long bus trips every single day, the number of children who are on reduced school days or the children who are in inappropriate settings, we know that it is a very different picture. The Minister should withdraw her amendment. To be frank, that is what she should do if she does not disagree with the Labour Party motion.

A number of factors need to be expedited. The Minister touched on buildings and teaching hours. We must invest in teachers to ensure they are adequately trained and that there are enough of them. It is the same with special needs assistants. We will have a session at 12 noon on injury leave. We must look at the 72 hours and the July work. We must deal with the cap. The Minister and I share the same constituency. I have been talking to the parents of 15 children in St. Patrick's National School in Stamullen who have had their SNA support withdrawn because of the arbitrary cap that is in place. That needs to change following the new interpretation of the 2024 toolkit and guidelines.

Deputy Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh

Gabhaim míle buíochas le Páirtí an Lucht Oibre as ucht an rún tábhachtach seo a chur os comhair na Dála inniu. Tá sé thar am dúinn éisteacht le guthanna na dtuismitheoirí atá ag fulaingt i gcóras a bhfuil ag teip orthu. Tá mé tar éis bualadh le han-chuid tuismitheoirí thar cúpla mí anuas, go háirithe North Kildare SEN Action Group, agus tá obair na gcapall ar siúl acu ar son a gcuid páistí. Inniu, I would like to share with Members the voice of a mamaí in Kildare whose words speak for hundreds, if not thousands, of families around the country. Her daughter attends Scoil Mochua in County Kildare. Her four-year-old autistic son hopes to one day attend school alongside his sister and within his community and with his friends. He is currently 12th on the list for a school don chéad scoilbhliain eile. His mamaí is not confident that he will have a place come September.

Scoil Mochua in Kildare was approved for two autism classes for 12 children with additional needs in 2021. Right around this time, this mother's son was born. It would have been a perfect place for him to attend but, almost four years on, those classes still do not exist. That is not because of a lack of will on the part of the school but because of a Land Registry issue that remains unresolved. While the Government claims it is doing everything in its power to ensure no child will be left without a school place in September, 12 children are being locked out of special education places in Kildare, and locked out of educational rights, and their human rights. How can we claim that special educational needs placements are at an emergency level when red tape is allowed to stand in the way of children's rights to an education?

This mother's family has been forced into debt as a result of paying €220 week privately on therapies because the CDNT failed to deliver early intervention. Tá sé de dhualgas ar an Stát tacaíocht cheart a thabhairt do na daoine is leochailí sa Stát, ar nós na bpáistí seo. Ní hé sin atá á dhéanamh, áfach. This mother told me her little girl asks her every morning why her brother cannot go to the same school. She does not understand, because there is nothing wrong with her brother. She is right. There is nothing wrong with these children, it is the system that has wronged them.

Now is the time for action. We need immediate transparency on school buildings and classes. We need a real emergency response team to cut through the red tape and the reform of the CDNT model, which is failing far too many children. These families do not want special treatment; they want fair treatment.

What is being done for this family and for Scoil Mochua in Celbridge, County Kildare, and many other schools that are in a similar situation across the State? Ní féidir leis na tuismitheoirí nó na páistí seo fanacht a thuilleadh.

Deputy Louis O'Hara

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this important motion. I want to use the opportunity to raise an ongoing allocation review in Lisheenkyle National School in my constituency, which is due to be completed in mid-May. The school currently has ten SNAs, who are a fantastic support to the children there. Parents have been informed by the SENO and school staff that the review is likely to reduce the number of SNAs in the school to just three or four. This school has a significant number of children with special educational needs. Needless to say, parents are extremely concerned at the prospect of such a drastic cut in support.

I have had parents in touch with me saying that if supports are cut to this extent, their child will no longer have an appropriate school place. One parent, who was recently able to go back working because their son was doing so well in school, feels they will have to leave their job if this goes ahead. This is absolutely disgraceful. The parents have a number of concerns about the process of this review and its timing. Why has it been left to May, at the very end of the school year? Behavioural care needs of children are not being taken into account as part of this review, only primary care needs. The impact on children with autism and other conditions is not being considered. According to the NCSE, the school is not a priority for opening a special class as there is no demand known in the area. How is demand known to an area? There are many children already in the school and in the local area who would avail of special classes. This is an absolutely unacceptable situation where children with additional needs will be left without the supports they need and without an appropriate school place. I ask the Minister to address this in her comments and to look into the specific case of Lisheenkyle National School. I ask her to ensure that a drastic cut in SNA support does not happen in the school and that it receive an adequate allocation or appropriate special classes. It would be an absolute failure of these children if that does not happen.

Deputy Claire Kerrane

It is totally unacceptable that in our State in 2025, children have no guarantee of an appropriate class place to meet their needs. An appropriate class place for children with additional needs will ensure that they can engage and fully participate in the classroom the same as any other child, and an appropriate class place must also be in the child's community. Why would we be busing our most vulnerable children around, expecting them to travel long distances to go to school and receive an education? Every single year, earlier and earlier, we start to hear from parents who are frantically ringing around schools asking for a place for their child. Parents should never be put in this position.

The motion brought forward by the Labour Party, which I welcome, also references the arbitrary cap on SNAs. We are hearing from parents now whose child has had a full-time SNA but will not have one from September. Why is this happening? I received figures last week showing that over 81,000 children are now on waiting lists for psychology, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy under primary care. That is not to mention the over 14,000 waiting for an assessment of need or the thousands of children waiting under the CDNTs. We have thousands of children on waiting lists. We need to train more therapists and we need them in our schools yesterday. As I have said before, everything for these parents is a battle, whether it is about school, waiting lists or therapies. It should not be this way.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Parents in Cork were promised in 2022 that a new special school would be delivered in Carrignavar. Three years later, and only because of the campaign led by parents whose children will have no school place this August, and those parents campaigning and sleeping outside the doors of the Dáil, has the Government finally acted. Now there is work being done. Does the Minister know what was not done? There is no capacity for water treatment. Since 2013, Carrignavar has had no capacity. We are talking about putting a special school in. We are doing up an old primary school building that is available, but we have no water treatment. In the meantime, as the Minister knows, children are being bused or taxied from Knocknaheeny down to Fermoy, as they will be in August. That is the bones of an hour's drive. These are children with additional needs, children with autism. They are going to spend their lives driving in cars. I raised the case of a woman in the Dáil over a year ago whose child is leaving the northside to go to Carrigaline. Nine hours the child is on the go, at six years old, between the car, the school and the car back. Nine hours is longer than a day's work and that is what the Government is giving these children and families. Many other families will have nowhere in August.

The Ministers have come in here and opposed the Labour Party's motion. Why would they oppose it? This is an honest to goodness attempt to give every child their rights. This is about rights. Every child has a right to an education. No child should be discriminated against because he or she has additional needs. That is what the Government is doing, either blocking them from education or sending them on spins for hours on end. It is a disgrace. The Government should withdraw its objection to the motion.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

What parents will have heard from the Minister in her response is a lot of reasonableness and trying to empathise with the situation. I suppose that is better than denying there is a problem. The reality for parents on the ground is that reasonable words will not put a single child inside the door of a school. I am dealing with the families of 13 children who do not have a place for this autumn. I was contacted by a parent just last night. One of the things I cannot understand is how we have this debate every year. Every March, April and into May we are talking about this. For neurotypical children in most parts of the county it is not a problem and it carries on, although there are many parts of the education system that could be better for them. Every single year we seem to be in this place where TDs from every part of the country are bringing forward examples of children and families who do not know where they are going. The anxiety, stress and worry that this causes for parents are enormous. They have fear about the impact on their children's potential to achieve the best they can in their lives and reach their full potential. I mean that in the broadest possible sense. Education needs to be about ensuring every child reaches their full potential, no matter what that may be. So much of education now is about careers, opportunities and all that and that is important. However, this is about ensuring children can reach their full potential. I referred to 13 children who do not have a school place at all. The Minister can multiply that by any amount for the children who do not have an appropriate school place, who are in a special class when they should be in a special school or are in mainstream when they should be in a special class, or who are at home when they should be in a special school. It is a profound failure of these children. The problem continues to escalate. While progress in respect of Carrignavar is welcome, there is still a huge amount needed in Cork.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

We need to cast our minds back five years to Covid and look at what we were able to achieve when people came together, in a very short period. All of the norms were overturned in a weekend to do what we needed to do to keep people safe, yet we come in here on this issue year after year. I am here six years now and we have raised this issue for six years and before that. I have been with parents on the protests, sometimes week after week, and I see some of them here. We brought up the issue in Dublin 15 in 2017 and 2018. There were big protests, big meetings, the same issues, questions and excuses. Year after year we see newer parents coming in and asking why their child does not have an appropriate school place. There is no reason whatsoever that this State, with billions of euro in the coffers, cannot provide a child an appropriate school place.

I appreciate the motion that came forward again. We have brought this to the House time and again, as have other people. We, all the parents here and all the children, are asking for students to have an appropriate school place; for the schools to be supported when they are providing the special classes and special schools; for the students to have an appropriate wrap-around service; for the assessments of need to happen when they are needed; and for the supports to be given when they are required. Those are the simple requests. There is no need to go around in circles time after time.

We have the answers. We need the Government to do it.

Deputy Cathy Bennett

I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion forward. As the Minister knows, families in County Monaghan have been campaigning for access to appropriate and adequate education for their children with special educational needs for years. They are entitled to it and should not have to fight for it. They campaign for new and additional classrooms within existing schools and the establishment of a special school. The announcement of an interim school with 18 places is welcome. It is 18 places more than we had previously. This has offered a better quality of life for 18 children who now do not have to travel to County Cavan every day, with return journeys taking upwards of four hours daily. When will the Minister be willing to commit to ensuring that every child in counties Monaghan and Cavan will be able to access an appropriate school place in their own community?

I will also highlight what is often a source of frustration for families, namely where gaps exist in services that are entirely foreseeable. We know the number of students who are due to transition from primary to secondary school every year. We also have an idea of how many will require ongoing support after they complete post-primary education. Families in Cavan and Monaghan whose children use special schools should not have to resume campaigning for day services when primary and secondary school education is completed. We need more planned services in both Cavan and Monaghan. Following representation from families, I appeal to the Minister to adopt a whole-of-life approach to additional needs supports and to plan for each child.

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan

I welcome the motion, which focuses on the challenges that thousands of parents and children throughout the State face all the time. Children with additional needs and their parents have plenty of obstacles to overcome but, in this day and age, access to education should not be one of them, although, unfortunately, it is for many people. I deal with them, as do my colleagues. Education is the foundation of everything. It opens doors, minds and learning. It also encourages future learning. It is the right of every child to have access to education. Unfortunately, not all children are being guaranteed that right. Not all children have the resources they need to achieve all they can in school.

I recently attended the research launch of the sky is the limit project at Corpus Christi school, Moyross. I commend Lindsey Liston, the chairperson of Corpus Christi Family Centre, and all those involved in this brilliant project. The sky is the limit programme has been an initiative since 2015 and is co-ordinated by an assistant psychologist based at the school. The primary aim of the programme is to provide psychological support to Corpus Christi primary school students and members of the surrounding community. It works really well. The Minister would do well to visit the school to meet the great staff and pupils and, importantly, support its ongoing efforts and see whether it, or a version of it, can be rolled out throughout the State, as it clearly works.

Le Chéile National School, on the south side of Limerick city, is a school I have spoken about on a number of occasions here. Senior staff at the school have highlighted time and time again major concerns regarding the absence of supports for children there. The school serves the Southill and Galvone areas of Limerick and has an enrolment of 186 children. According to the Pobal deprivation index, that area is the second most deprived in the whole State, with a label of "extremely disadvantaged". From in-school assessments by the school, it is estimated that 72% of its children have at least one additional need, with almost 40% having two additional needs. I ask the Minister to personally intervene in respect of this school, which has not got the supports it has been promised for years.

Deputy Liam Quaide

I very much commend the Labour Party on its motion. We have a situation in this country where families are increasingly having to become almost full-time campaigners for their children's basic needs because of a failure by successive Governments to forward plan. The impact of this failure on the families of children with additional needs is immense. It is bringing many parents to breaking point.

Transitioning to primary or secondary school is a very significant stage in any child's journey through life. It can involve many challenges around fitting in with peers, adapting to a different structure of study and generally moving forward in his or her development. For a child with additional needs, even in the best of circumstances where supports are in place and there is a good school near home, the challenges are often far greater. What we see throughout the country are children making that momentous step into primary and secondary school with no clarity for many months in advance regarding where they will attend school or how long their school commute will be. There are huge quality of life implications for those children and their families, including mental health implications.

We are seeing children dislocated from their communities for their schooling at a very sensitive stage of development, as a result of which their parents come under enormous additional strain. We need an emergency response to the crisis in special education. We need to see special education placements and staff funded on a systematic per population basis, not according to whether there happens to be a group of families in a position to campaign for a school in their local area over many years. In some cases, the children of those campaigners will have aged out by the time the school materialises. This haphazard way of planning for our communities, where we have a patchwork of school placements that are repeatedly over capacity and under-resourced has to end.

Other aspects of our special education system add immense unnecessary stress and tedium to parents who are already under so much pressure. These need to be addressed urgently. The advocacy group Families Unite for Services and Support, FUSS, has highlighted, for instance, the administrative burden of not having a centralised application process. That means some families are forced to fill out multiple lengthy application forms because each school has autonomy over its enrolments. FUSS, which is made up of parents of children with disabilities, has done enormously valuable work in this area, drawing on its experience of navigating a broken system, and has set out a range of actions that the Government could pursue to resolve the interconnected crises across disability services and special education. FUSS has backed that up with extensive data and in-depth analysis. The Minister and Minister of State could relieve themselves of much of the burden on their shoulders if they were to give FUSS, and ground-level clinicians, teaching staff and SNA representative groups, leading consultative roles in reforming our special education and disability services.

Deputy Jen Cummins

I thank the Labour Party for its motion on special education. I have heard so much pain, frustration and determination from families throughout my constituency and many constituencies in this country. I have travelled to different places to hear from families. In my constituency of Dublin South-Central, from Ballyfermot to Drimnagh, Inchicore and Crumlin, there are parents who at crisis point with their children. They are worn out trying to get a place for their child in a special education class or school. Not only do they have to fight for everything for their children, but they also have to fight for the basic right to an education as well. It is heart-breaking and is not good enough.

I ask the Government to look at the human side of this. I know the Minister and Minister of State do that as individuals, but I urge them to please try to stop the Department with its "computer says no" version of what is going on. Children are being sent to schools miles away that are not in their community and which they have to travel to. Some of these children being sent far away are only little. Parents fought hard for the Libermann Spiritan School in Templeogue. It is fantastic that it opened but it does not have enough resources. It does not have everything that needs to happen in a special school. It is brilliant and fantastic that we are going to open special schools and special classrooms, but resources that need to come with that for everything that needs to be decked out in those schools and not as an afterthought. It needs to be planned out in advance. We also need to make sure that every single member of staff working in those schools is fully trained before they go in.

Another matter I am concerned about and about which I asked the Minister previously relates to when she will have more places at third level for students going into occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and all those courses. It is very important that happens this year. Students are sitting the leaving certificate who would love to do those courses. There are students who are siblings or family members of those with special needs who would love to go into those careers. I would love to have an answer to this as it has not made clear: are those places in place for this September-October when college starts? If not, is there anything that could be done to hurry that up?

Deputy Sinéad Gibney

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward the motion. In particular, I commend the recommendations made in the motion, where we see outlined the upholding of the vision of inclusive education to which we should all aspire. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems to become a little lost in our discussion that inclusive education is where we need to be at. All of us are sharing experiences today. It is the same in my constituency of Dublin Rathdown, including Stillorgan, Foxrock, Dundrum, Goatstown and Kilmacud. I have spoken with families who at their wits' end from the intensive campaigning they have had to do for many years to simply realise their child's right to education.

What is inclusive education? Inclusive education means that, as an individual, I access the right to an education with choice. I look at my local community and find an educational pathway that matches my needs, my values and my ideology, and somewhere that does not other me from peers in my age group and locality. That is what inclusive education is. I fear that we often lose sight of this. It is what we all should be striving toward.

We are talking about special education. Really, we should have moved beyond use of the word "special". We should have a mainstream education system which meets the needs of everybody within it and which prevents us from othering people in the disability community. We have a roadmap for this. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which we ratified in 2018, states clearly that a state's obligation is to provide an inclusive education system which is directed to:

a. The full development of human potential and sense of dignity and self-worth, and the strengthening of respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and human diversity;

b. The development by persons with disabilities of their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential;

c. Enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society.

Unless we keep our eyes on that prize of truly inclusive education, that is what we will lose out on. We are losing out, as individuals, as families, as communities and as a society, on the contribution of all of our people.

Deputy Gary Gannon

I thank Labour for bringing forward this important motion. I bid a huge welcome to the parents and guardians who are in the Gallery, many of whom I recognise from my community. There also people who have had to travel to the Dáil previously and who have slept outside the offices of the Department merely to vindicate their child's rights. Each time I see those very same faces, hear their stories and feel their pain, the question I am repeatedly obliged to ask is "Why does it have to be so difficult?" Why does a parent have to sleep outside the Department of Education to get their child a school place? Why would a school that is told it needs an SNA be blocked from hiring one? Why are teachers and SNAs expected to do more with less in antiquated classrooms that were never designed to cater for those with complex needs? Why, 20 years after the EPSEN Act was passed, are we still waiting for key parts to be commenced? There is no mystery here. We know how many children are born each year. We know how many have additional needs. We know the supports they require, and still matters are left until the very last minute. Every year, a scramble for school places throws schools and parents into crisis. It is a repetition of trauma, a pursuit merely for the basic need of obtaining a school place.

This is not about a lack of information. Clearly, that is not the case. It is about a lack of planning, foresight, urgency and political will. I do not want to individualise it and focus on a particular person - I do not for one second believe that is the case - but I want to understand the culture in which these decisions have been made and allowed to fester for decades, to the point where children do not have school places.

Four hundred new special classes were announced for next year but already we know they will not be enough if the Department does not come with the therapists, the sensory supports and a trained and supported workforce. If these classes are located miles from people's homes, this will force children into making long, exhausting commutes. We would not accept this in mainstream education; we should not accept it in this instance either.

It should not take a media campaign. It should not take parents having to sleep on the pavement outside Dáil Éireann. It should not take parents having to consistently call public meetings, advocate and learn to become legal professionals in their own right just so that they can vindicate a child's right. It should not have to be that hard. Ultimately, what we are talking about is simply access to school places.

This should be a great crusade. I cannot understand the scenario where budget time will come around in a couple of months and people will be talking about tax cuts at a time when we do not have school places or therapists. This needs to be the great goal, and we are all want the Minister working rapidly in respect of it.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Ken O'Flynn)

Moving on to the Independent and Parties Technical Group, I call Deputy Paul Murphy.

Deputy Paul Murphy

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, states parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities can access an inclusive, quality and free primary education and secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live. Think of the multiple ways in which those rights are denied to children in this State. I refer here to the 100-plus who were left without school places last September, the many who were pressured to take inappropriate school places, those who were pressured to do extra years in preschool, the 20,000 children who were transported every day outside of their own communities and those who were forced into home tuition. It is a scandalous failure of children in this State.

The Government is under pressure on this issue. There is no question about that, which is good to see. It is because of the action of the parents in the Gallery and the many thousands like them across the country. That is why we have the promise of the 400 classes in September, but it has to be met. We have to see it happen. It has to be in September; it cannot be later. The parents will not give up.

Deputy Brian Stanley

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this progressive motion. It is a case of here we go again. We have a shortage of school places for children with special needs, and there are huge gaps. In addition to the obstacles with the lack of nearby school classes in their catchment area, children are experiencing exclusion and extended absences from school. In some cases, they are receiving no supports. The impact of that disengagement from schools is catastrophic for the children and for their families. If a child does not have a place and he or she has a special need or disability, he or she is more likely to be placed on reduced hours. While there has been some investment in this area, we need to see more.

In County Laois, the Government is constantly announcing special classes. There are press releases issued. There are emails sent to all the Government TDs. Nine such classes have been announced, but where will the Minister put them? Many of the schools have made it clear that they do not have the space to provide them. This has to be rectified by September. We have 16 or 17 weeks to get this right. Announcements are no good it there is no space for classes.

The Rock National School, for example, is going to have to find space in the playground for modular classrooms. Management at the school has stated that it will be a challenge to get the new buildings in place by August. The families have contacted the school already. If the classes are oversubscribed, which is likely, the school is on record as stating that there will be a problem. Castlecuffe National School is happy that it is getting the first special needs class but it is facing a situation where it will have to put the children involved into a general purpose classroom or use the PE hall. It is the same in Killeshin. The school there is working to put a contingency plan in place due to the lack of accommodation and is being pressurised to set up in the PE hall. Modular buildings need to be put in place. That is the message I want to give the Minister this morning. Laois is happy to have new classes but the schools involved need the physical space to accommodate them.

Deputy Charles Ward

We welcome this motion from Labour. There has been a complete failure on the part of the Government to adequately plan for school places for children with special and additional educational needs. This comes up every year without fail. It is across the whole country and yet the Government fails to plan for it. Every year, there is no change.

Parents should not be forced to try to ensure that their children are not denied an education. Schools should not be forced to turn any child away on foot of a lack of places. This has been happening across the entire country, but especially at Little Angels in Letterkenny. I am very grateful for the Minister's intervention there. Little Angels, the children and their parents should never have been forced into this situation in the first place. It should never have got to the point where parents had to start the Don't Forget Our Little Angels for September 2025 group to take a stand in respect of the education and the future of their children. It should never have got to the stage where mothers had to sleep outside the Houses, as we all have been saying, constantly campaigning and bringing it forward. As children go to their beds every night, their distraught parents are crying down the phone for help. We have done our utmost and I acknowledge the Minister's contribution to that too.

No child should ever be left behind. I would encourage the Minister, during her term, to make sure that this does not happen year after year and get children their right - their place to an education.

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

I thank the Labour Party for bringing the motion forward. Danu Community Special School in my constituency of Dublin West agreed last summer to take an additional 12 children - two new classes - to deal with a school places crisis we were experiencing in Dublin 15. Those children were due to start in the school in September of last year. They are all now on the books of Danu school.

However, not one of those children has started their educational journey in Danu because the two modular classes have not been provided. Some of them are in inappropriate school places elsewhere. Most are still at home. When are the modular units for Danu Community Special School going to be provided? There is no planning permission in place and no final design has been agreed. All we have right now is a soil test.

Those kids were meant to be in Danu last September. I do not know if we can say they will be in the school in September of this year. I appeal to the Minister of State to engage with his officials in the Department to see what we can do to unlock this process to ensure those modular units are delivered. He has spoken about the delivery of new school places this September but we have not built the units that were promised last September. This makes it hard for parents to believe they will be delivered. I ask that the Minister of State work to ensure the 12 children in Danu get the appropriate school places they need and deserve.

Deputy Seamus Healy

The question of disability services for children with additional needs is now a very significant national issue. It is second only to the housing emergency. The State is failing these children every day. Over 14,000 are waiting for an assessment of need, which is in breach of the law. Some 41,000 are waiting for therapy services and well over 100 are waiting for school places. If we are honest, thousands of children are in inappropriate school places. Parents are at their wits' end and are completely frustrated in their search for places for their children. I recently raised the case of Michael Joseph Barrett, a young boy with autism. His family got 16 rejection letters before eventually getting a school place. Of course, the family is relieved but the school place is 15 miles away, which is completely outside the area and away from his community and friends. This is not good enough. Parents are sleeping out in search of school places for their children and others are being dragged through the courts in search of them. At the same time, there are schools that are ready, willing and able to provide places but, for some reason, the Department has refused to approve these schools. In particular, I refer to Bansha National School in County Tipperary. The number of children in inappropriate school places is absolutely huge. It is in the thousands. That is a result of assessments of need not being done. It is not good enough.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

I welcome the parents and campaigners to the Gallery. I have seen these women at the Dáil more than I have seen some TDs. That is how often they are here. They are absolute heroes for campaigning for their kids in this way.

I will mention Dublin 15 because some may be under the illusion that the pilot project in the area has done something magical. It absolutely has not. As has been mentioned, the 12 places that were allocated last September still have not been provided. From talking to people on that task force, I know there is a need for four to six classes immediately. We also need another special school in Dublin West because of the demand from those with autism and complex needs.

Words are losing their meaning with this Government. We hear that places are allocated but these are fictional and never actually materialise, as we see in the case of the 12 children in Danu. The Minister stated that schools are progressing recruitment but the Minister of State knows there a severe shortage of teachers and that it is even harder for special needs schools. The amendment to the motion indicates there are 3,700 special classes. There are that number of schools in the country. In fact, you would need six special classes in most big urban schools rather than one. You would need one for each year. The amendment also states that the Minister of State will issue a section 37A instruction to one school. That is it. After all the hemming and hawing and blaming principals for not opening schools, the Minister of State is only issuing one such instruction.

Deputy Paul Nicholas Gogarty

Will the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach remind me how long I have? Is it one minute and 30 seconds?

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Ken O'Flynn)

It is 1.5 minutes.

Deputy Paul Nicholas Gogarty

That is short enough, but it is sufficient to say that I support the motion. I have been around as an elected representative for a long time and was involved with the education committee when the original Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act was enacted. As others have said, it is shocking that so many aspects of that legislation still have not been enacted. I was checking my notes as I was starting to speak and the only sections that have been enacted are those regarding the promotion of an inclusive approach to the education of children and the establishment of the NCSE. That was very welcome but I have heard reports from my own area of assessments done by the NCSE as to what is required not meeting the demand on the ground. Many other sections of the Act have not been brought into effect. I refer to sections 3 and 13, parts of section 14 and sections 15 to 18, which relate to the independent appeals process. There is a lot more to be done.

While I am here, I will welcome the establishment of a special school in south Lucan. This will initially take 30 students. It is very welcome. However, without the overall framework through which we can properly assess needs, we will still be catching up. I know there have been arguments made that the requirements for special education have changed and that some aspects of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act have to be reviewed but I believe it has ultimately come down to finance. We need to find that money to invest in our children.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

I know the issue of special needs is close to the Minister of State's heart. We see delays in assessments for children. If we cannot get assessments on time, why can we not put in place a reimbursement scheme for people who can get them? We have done it for hips and knees. In the interim and until we get the assessments done, why can we not have a reimbursement scheme for those who are able to get an assessment somewhere else? That could speed up the process. We could get the children assessed and looked after faster.

On equipment for children with special needs, we need to audit the sector. Equipment is being put into warehouses when people are finished with it. This could be repurposed, reused, recycled and brought back out again for somebody else. I am talking about buggies, wheelchairs and other things. In certain places, there are warehouses full of stuff that has come back after being used and which has not been repurposed. It could be checked over and modified. It is the same as buying a second-hand car. If someone is waiting for something, this could keep them going in the interim. It is about using what we have to hand. I am looking for a small bit of common sense. Yesterday, I spoke about a woman who had a buggy for her ten-year-old child who is non-verbal and does not walk. She has a buggy suitable for a child up to eight years of age but her son is ten. She has to go to the emergency department and put him into a buggy sized for someone two years younger than him. I guarantee there are loads of buggies of the correct size that could be repurposed and reused in these warehouses around the country where the HSE is storing this stuff. I would like an audit of all of the stuff the HSE gives out and of the stuff it never gets back because people do not hand it back when they are finished with it. This could be repurposed, reconditioned and given back out to people while we wait for things for them.

Deputy Michael Collins

This motion highlights real failures in special education, and Independent Ireland says it is long overdue. We agree that too many children have been left without places. That is not just a statistic; it is heartbreak in every community. We have said loudly before that a national plan for special education is needed rather than sticking plasters. We support Labour's call for a centralised system but it must also be kept local. Cork needs and solutions can be different from those in Dublin. Transport for children with special needs is critical and I am glad it is mentioned but there should have been a national guarantee years ago. Let us be clear; we need to put parents and schools at the centre rather than just having the Department in Dublin shuffling papers. Independent Ireland backs lifting the barriers on hiring SNAs. Kids are missing out because of penny-pinching in the system. We say more. We should stop making SNAs jump through hoops. They deserve permanent and respected jobs rather than second-class treatment. The motion speaks of in-school therapies. We back that but we also demand proper investment rather than vague promises.

Independent Ireland is proud to have called for play, art and music therapies to be fully part of every child's school day. We support a full review of special education law. The delay relating to the implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act is a national scandal.

Let us remember that no review or paper will fix this without money or manpower.

I am aware of a constituent who has a physical and intellectual disability and despite repeated requests from her family she has had very little input from disability services since 2019. Most recently a particular organisation has not accepted her for a referral for a placement. That organisation has not provided adequate explanations for why it has not accepted her. Several emails have passed between our offices and the organisation seeking clarity. The woman is at home six days a week with her elderly parents. It is terribly distressing. I agree with the push on better training for teachers for special needs but training alone without real world practice is useless. We deem that every new teacher has experience with children with different abilities.

To the Government I would say no more pilot projects. Roll out proper therapists, proper teachers and proper spaces now. I support much of this motion because parents have waited long enough. We will also hold every Minister's feet to the fire. It is about common sense. Every child matters, not next year and not with a consultation, but now.

Deputy Paul Lawless

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and I welcome the parents here in the Public Gallery. They are the warriors who have been fighting so hard. They have been fighting, taking legal action and pitching tents outside Leinster House. What are they fighting for? They are fighting for their basic rights and their constitutionally enshrined rights for access to education.

I was at a fair in Mayo over the Easter holidays and I met a beautiful family. The mother was nearly in tears because her child has no place in the education system. The child is locked out of the education system. There are 14,000 children across this State waiting for assessments of need. Some 13,000 children are waiting for their first contact with the children's disability network. There is a window of opportunity where children are undergoing rapid development from the ages of five, seven and ten. That age is critical. It is critical because to lose this opportunity for these children is a devastating loss. We know that early intervention and early resources at this critical age will have a dramatic impact on the ability of these children to live their lives independently. It is a sin and a crime that these children are being failed at such an important developmental time in their lives.

The Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, stated recently in a response that children do not require a diagnosis or an assessment of need to access services. While this is technically true, it shows an extreme lack of understanding of what is happening on the ground. Children without assessments of need are very often left at the bottom of the queue. That is the reality.

I know of a school in Mayo where children have an assessment of need and yet, due to the lack of resources, prioritisation is necessary. In this case, prioritisation was given to the younger child because it was believed that he would be longer in the school system. The older child was, essentially, left. That is what is happening on the ground. It is very disappointing that the Minister, Deputy McEntee's statement shows such a lack of understanding of what is happening on the ground.

I could go through years of statements where the Government and the previous one, and the Government from 2011, made commitments and realised the importance of early intervention. However, so little is happening on the ground. When are these endless promises going to be met?

The Government has made commitments this year. There is a huge shortage of psychologists and speech and language therapists and yet there is major bureaucracy around qualifying for the people, including young people, who want to access these careers. I call on the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, to prioritise these vulnerable children.

Deputy John Connolly

I recognise the Minister of State's full commitment on this. I have engaged with him on this issue. I have heard him talk about it at parliamentary party meetings and he has shown great commitment and enthusiasm in this role. There has to be some recognition that in the space and time he has been allowed 400 special classes will be introduced from September. I am not sure if that is a record but it is certainly significant. I understand fully and I agree - and the Taoiseach says it frequently - that it is no consolation to anybody or any family that has no place for their child from September, but I know the Minister of State will continue to work in that area and, hopefully, we will continue to roll out further places in special schools and further special classes for those children who need them.

I want to confine my comments to the one service mentioned in the motion and in the countermotion, which is the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. I recognise that there will be further evolution of NEPS with the counselling in primary schools pilot scheme over the next two years. That is to be welcomed. Traditionally, NEPS would have been solely responsible for the assessment of a pupil. Perhaps I am going back some time but in my own teaching career that is what we would have associated NEPS with. That has changed a lot and unfortunately NEPS no longer has the wherewithal, in terms of personnel, to make sure it is carrying out all assessments that are needed of children in primary schools. I believe schools would have a preference that NEPS would be the assessment authority or provide the assessment person and that parents and families would have the same preference. They would get great consolation from knowing that an assessment has been undertaken by a State service as opposed to a private psychologist. Given the volume of assessments taking place and the volume and the needs of children, I recognise it is not possible for that to be the case but we need to look at the cost of the private sector psychological assessment for the family of the child. There is a shortage of such psychologists. We are all familiar with hearing about the various scales of costs but certainly it is not cheap. It is costing families a lot of money to have that psychological assessment.

NEPS does seem to be stretched, although I say this while recognising, and in the knowledge, that NEPS has been embellished with further psychologists in the past year or two. Given the increased demand for assessments and the increased need, NEPS needs be further resourced and the number of psychologists within the service increased. I will give the Minister of State an example from my community. A NEPS psychologist was on maternity leave but unfortunately could not be replaced during that time.

Deputy Barry Heneghan

When I raised this through a parliamentary question on 10 April, I welcomed the Government's commitment to special needs assistant numbers with new posts by 2025 but good intentions are not enough. I asked the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, how the numbers were proposed to be distributed, and specifically for me how they would be allocated to schools in Dublin Bay North where families continue to face serious delays. Hundreds of people are getting in contact with me and my office about this. Behind the national figures are real children, many with autism and many complex needs, who are still without appropriate school places. Parents in my constituency and across the country are exhausted from fighting the system that should be there to support them.

I also highlighted delays with the Minister of State. We are told it is being streamlined but schools are still waiting too long for decisions. When support is recommended, too often the recruitment process is blocked due to funding constraints. I thank the Minister of State for engaging with me regarding Belmayne Educate Together and the plan for a special school there and for the effort he made with the Department. We do, however, need transparency in the allocations, we need faster reviews, and we need funding to follow the needs not the headline. Every child in this country deserves this. That is the standard we should be aiming for.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I thank the Minister of State for engaging with all of us in Tipperary. I thank him also for meeting a parent recently, Tina Barrett. Her son recently got a place in St. Michael's and I thank the Minister of State for his involvement there, albeit in Tipperary town. There are two excellent special schools in Tipperary, Scoil Aonghusa and Scoil Chormaic, but they are at capacity. They had to turn away 17 children. There is a real problem in providing sufficient numbers of second level classes. It is really a failing on the part of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCSE. I know the Minister of State knows this, although I also know he is committed to this. We really need a new special school in south Tipperary and west Waterford. We have the two excellent schools in Cashel. The Minister of State visited one of them recently and I appreciate that. I could not say enough about the boards of management of those schools, the volunteers and the parents here today and the fight they have to have for their children.

We need some place in Clonmel. Ferryhouse is a wonderful institution, and is no longer being used for what it was. It is just east of Clonmel, between it and Carrick-on-Suir. It would make for a wonderful location. I ask the Department to examine its potential as a new special school, which would cater for people from west Waterford and south Tipperary, because people should not have to travel long distances. It takes them away from their hinterlands and their siblings in school. I appeal to the Minister of State - I do not have much time and I do not want to take time from my colleagues - to continue with his good work. I thank him again for his engagement.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I thank Labour for tabling the motion before us today. It is important. Nothing is more important than this.

A large burden is placed on parents when they see their child developing autism. They have to fight for primary school education and special needs teachers. Then, when they move on to post-primary school, they have to do it again. Surely, when a student is diagnosed, the supports should follow through from primary to post-primary education automatically. They should not have to fight for this again. Every child has a right to education. If it is special education, so be it.

I should have thanked the Minister of State for visiting St. Mary of the Angels in Beaufort, our special school, and indeed other schools, but especially St. Mary of the Angels. We have a lot more work to do there.

Another problem arises, in that the Department says it has X number of SNA places and that the country is covered but in many cases it is not. The Minister of State's constituency is the same as mine, in that there are big distances between different schools. A school with an SNA for a child seven or eight miles away is no good if there is no transport, which often happens. We need to ensure that these SNAs are placed locally where the children are. They are entitled to receive support locally. Recognition was given to-----

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Ken O'Flynn)

Thank you, Deputy.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I am sorry, but it is very important.

Deputy Gillian Toole

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach agus leis an Aire as a bheith anseo inniu. I will be brief, in case my colleague comes in.

There is agreement and unity across the House on this most serious and life-changing issue for the youngest in our population. I will confine my comments to suggestions of things that are already working in communities in Meath East and can be extended. This suggestion is not in place, but why can the treatment purchase scheme and treatment abroad scheme not be extended to the purchase of the assessment of need from the private sector, with parents refunded retrospectively? If we can do it for health and operations outside the State, why can we not do it for the services of professionals within the State, to whom we have given their credentials? There are colleges of further education and training offering speech and language therapy and occupational therapy courses in Dunboyne, County Meath, for example. Can their work placements be extended to local national schools?

I wish to reference nurture rooms for time out. I am making my comments primarily about mainstream schools. We all appreciate the efforts that will be made and the allocation of therapists to special schools, but there are children in mainstream education who require interim and intermittent supports. There are also wellbeing classes that can be operated that are already in existence, for example, in St. James's in Dublin 8. I can provide the Minister of State with a list of schools in County Meath. There is a school where there is a practitioner - a primary school teacher with additional training - who is training others. Such initiatives can be implemented within two to three months.

We have the general agreement and support. What is missing? Is it competency or an attitudinal problem at senior levels within the Department? I am not saying it is, but I am asking the question. To me, that is the reason we are not moving beyond good intentions, experience, lived experience and working models and that we cannot put them into action. If it is the case that it is an attitudinal and competency problem, I am afraid that is a nettle the Minister of State and his colleagues, whose commitment I do not doubt for one minute, must grasp. As others have said, this is a repetitive subject. Children's futures cannot wait because of incompetency, if that is the case.

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Deputy Michael Moynihan)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on the debate. I thank the Labour Party for this motion. I also thank my colleagues across the House for their meaningful contributions. I welcome parents and guardians to the Gallery. I know the challenge, anguish and difficulties they are facing to try to ensure that there are places for their children in September.

Long before I took on this role, I worked extensively with people with disabilities, but from a personal level over recent years, I know full well the challenges that many families are facing. I want to bring that personal story. I want to bring the passion that I have in this regard to the job that I hold.

Many contributions have been made about providing education for our children. We have to make sure that we are driving as hard as we can, that we take the pain, suffering and challenges from the families, that there is certainty in it. In the role I have had over the past number of weeks, I have worked extensively on the 400 extra classes. Section 37A was mentioned earlier. We have agreement on 399 classes and one is outstanding. That is the one in which we will have to go with section 37A because we were unable to get agreement. These are places that will be additional from 1 September.

We have a huge amount of work to do regarding special schools and to ensure that people have places in it. I am committed. I do not say it lightly, but since I got this role, I have worked night and day on this. I have had many sleepless nights thinking of the challenges that are faced by families. I assure the House, the people listening in and the people in the Gallery that the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and I are working as hard as we can to ensure that we have the proper services and education systems for the children of this country that they so badly need.

I want to put a number of issues on the record. The Government has been working hard on a number of issues. Building on my colleague, the Minister, Deputy McEntee's earlier contribution, I want to welcome and outline the Government's unwavering commitment and to highlight some of the significant steps that we have taken in recent times to ensure that children and young people, particularly those with educational needs, are genuinely supported to reach their full potential. I refer to the 1940s, when Maslow's hierarchy of needs was written. It has been 80 years or more since that was conceptualised. That theory showed that it was not just not food and shelter that we needed, but an education system that would develop us to our full potential. I believe that we need to have a system in place that will fulfil the full potential of children with additional needs in order that they can become members of their communities, whether those be urban or rural. It is vital that we recognise the importance of resourcing this area, as it is with resources that we will make sure that there is improvement throughout the system.

I emphasise that we have made significant financial commitment. I know Members have said that they do not want to listen to statistics, but we have. More than a quarter of the Department of Education's budget is now dedicated to supporting children with additional needs. That is simply how seriously we are taking it. I know the Minister provided important updates on special educational places, the common application system and teacher training. Of course, there are now new therapists going into special schools and special classes. That is an important piece that was agreed by the Government recently.

Special needs assistants were mentioned. The school communities that have engaged with special education have been completely enriched by it. All students have embraced special education and it will build into society and life.

These special needs assistants have been a huge resource right through. Unfortunately - or fortunately, I am not sure - I am long enough in this House to remember when the special needs assistant was a community employment, CE, worker, way back in the day before special needs assistants were established. The work these special needs assistants do in every school community the length and breadth of the country is simply breathtaking. It is on their backs we have built an integrated special education system in special classes. The work that is being done by the special needs assistants, but also by the teachers and the school leadership, has to be recognised.

I chaired the disability matters committee in the previous Dáil and I used two words regarding the challenges that were facing people with disabilities, namely, "culture" and "attitude". Unfortunately, there is still a level of culture and attitude out there that we have to break down and continue talking about. Sitting here over the past two hours and listening to the genuine passion and concern shown by Deputies of all colours and creeds has been refreshing. I encourage in every way, shape and form that they continue to do that, not just here in Dáil Éireann, but across the country because we have to continue breaking down the barriers that are still out there in terms of disabilities and the attitudes towards disabilities.

Over the past number of months, we have worked with the National Council for Special Education. As the Minister said, we have met weekly to ensure that the special classes are in place and there is a weekly progress report on special schools and the identification of the challenges we face. Needs have been identified to the National Council for Special Education and it has been working through those. We have been trying to provide places in the areas where the need is greatest, in so far as possible.

There are a number of matters. We are looking forward to the SNA workforce development. A lot of work has been done by the Department, education bodies and education partners over the past while in that regard.

Mention was made of the EPSEN Act. We are looking forward to the review of that Act. That will be fundamental to education.

School transport is an important part of this. All the Deputies will know that parents of children with additional needs who have school transport, be it through a transport grant or a transport place, will be contacting Deputies to engage with the Department. We must do an awful lot better on it. Sometimes, when transport is provided for a family, it takes a number of months for that to be put in place. That is hugely frustrating and challenging. We have to make sure that we and the school transport section of the Department are working hard to ensure that it takes less time and is dealt with in a timely manner.

A number of issues were raised about several schools. On Danu Community Special School, work will commence in May this year. Members spoke about the assessment of need. I know from my previous role that the Government is buying private services. I believe approximately 2,500 private assessments of need have been paid for over the past while, but I will get those facts to the two Members who raised the issue.

All I can say in the minute that I have remaining is that I am deeply committed to my role. I am deeply passionate about it and I believe we have an awful lot of work to do. We are almost at May Day and we still have families who do not know where their children will go in September. One of my driving forces is that, over the past year or two, I met a family whose child was finishing up in primary school. I met them at the school gate and they did not know where their child would go in September. As a parent first of all but as a public representative, I walked away from that saying we had to do an awful lot better. It should not be the case that the family did not know. They had to fight right through the summer. Everybody else knew in September or October of the previous year where they would be going.

My commitment to this is extremely strong. I will work with all Members of the House on any queries or challenges they have. The Minister and I will work night and day to ensure we have the best possible education system for people with special needs into the future.

Deputy Duncan Smith

I for one do not doubt the Minister of State's personal bona fides in terms of his approach to this role, the success of which everyone in the Gallery and beyond wants to see. If the Minister of State is successful, it will improve the lives of families and children that need special education. However, one of the first acts that the Minister of State could do today is to encourage the Minister to withdraw this insulting amendment to our motion.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Deputy Duncan Smith

It is not insulting to us as such, but to the families, the parents, the SNAs and the activists in the Gallery, outside and throughout the country. It is insulting to the 126 children who are without a school place now, one of whom, Frankie Edgeworth in my constituency, has been refused 83 different forms of education from preschool to primary school. He is six years of age and severely autistic with intellectual disabilities. He has a huge array of ancillary needs and is still without a school place. It is not the SENO's fault. It is the Department's fault and the Minister's fault. It is not the fault of schools such as St. Cronan's in Swords, whose students I welcomed for a tour here today. That school is doing everything it can. Schools like Broadmeadow Community National School put their hands up and say they have their own grounds, want to provide autism classes and are willing to ease the waiting lists in their localities, but what is the response I got from the Minister? It was that the Department would put Broadmeadow on the list. Apparently, the Government is looking for schools to put their hands up and saying it will give them facilities. Obviously, there is a staffing need and that will only be met if schools have time to do it, but the Minister is putting those schools that are putting their hands up on the long finger. It is disgraceful and goes against every public pronouncement that the Minister makes.

The amendment is offensive to SNAs. We have spoken about the work they do and the arbitrary cap. The Minister of State said that they were the backbone of special education, but SNAs have been shown a lack of respect over many years. I acknowledge the work Fórsa and other unions have done about respect for SNAs and SNAs know there could be a potential hazard in the job. Some of them require assault leave. There is one case I am dealing with that is embarrassing to the Minister of State and the Government because of what the SNA has to go through just to get that an entitlement to assault leave to ensure the SNA can recover and get back to work quickly, which is all that person wants to do. It is an administrative bungling that is embarrassing for any State organisation to stand over. It is something I have raised, but the parliamentary question responses have been nothing short of disgraceful.

Our motion, written by Deputy Eoghan Kenny and supported by the Labour Party, has the support of the Opposition. It should have the support of the Government but there are others in special education who are just forgotten by the Government as well. There is actually no policy for children with dyslexia. They are unable to get the supports they need within mainstream schooling because of the ratio and there is no policy to support them. It is a failure from top to bottom.

I wish the Minister of State well. I do not doubt his personal bona fides but there is a huge lot of work to do. The first thing he could do is withdraw this insulting amendment.

Deputy Mark Wall

I thank my colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny, for tabling this important motion. I thank and welcome all the parents and guardians who are in the Gallery today. If we cannot value the things that matter the most, like a right to education, how can we build a future for our children? Our Labour Party motion does exactly that. It highlights a right to education as a basic value of Irish society to truly deliver on the constitutional right of every child to an appropriate school place.

The Minister, Deputy McEntee, in her speech said that she does not disagree with any part of our motion. The Minister of State acknowledged that. Yet the Government continues to oppose the motion with its amendment. Like my colleague, Deputy Smith, I ask the Minister of State to withdraw the amendment and give a bit of hope to the parents who came out today to support the Labour Party motion. The Minister of State can still do that.

Centralised applications are key to so many parents whom I deal with. My office, like those of many Members of this House, is inundated with calls from parents who cannot get school places for their loved ones. Centralised applications were mentioned by the Minister, Deputy McEntee, in her speech. She spoke about waiting on a report and about hopefully rolling it out. That is simply not good enough. We need centralised applications now. Too many parents are making 40, 50 or, as my colleague has just said, 83 calls. It is happening day in, day out. It is simply not good enough. We also have parents putting their loved ones into transport each morning, crisscrossing other parents because there is no cohesion as to where the school places are being offered. We need a centralised application system and we need it now. It is too late to be waiting for more reports. In my constituency, in Newbridge, the average waiting time is 32 families. I acknowledge, as all my colleagues have done, the great work the SNAs do and acknowledge the work that my colleague, Senator Laura Harmon, has done along with the campaigner, Sophie Cole. I hope the Minister of State will be able to support the assault leave Bill the Senator brings forward.

Again I raise the need for a special school in south Kildare. The special school was opened in Craddockstown, Naas, in north Kildare. We have had promises that the school would open in south Kildare. It needs to open in south Kildare. The school in north Kildare that was opened is already full and parents are crying out for places. It is simply not good enough that we have no school in south Kildare.

I also raise once again the Sensational Kids project in Kildare. A new national child development centre lies in blocks in Kildare town. We spoke about the need for therapists. One of the key reasons for bringing this forward was to train therapists so they can help the children, yet we have a school that can provide 18,000 therapist hours per year lying in blocks in Kildare town. The Government needs to act on this. I acknowledge the work that has been done by my colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny. I take the Minister of State's bona fides but we need action now.

Deputy Robert O'Donoghue

I welcome the parents and activists in the Gallery and thank my colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny, for bringing this important motion forward. In my constituency, Fingal West, I regularly hear, like all Members do, from families deeply concerned about the severe shortage of appropriate education placements and supports for children with special needs. Accessing school settings remains a major challenge in my area, compounded by long waiting times for psychological assessments and interventions. These delays often leave children without a formal diagnosis or the support they urgently need. We must act with urgency to ensure that every child gets the right support in the right place. Inclusive accessible learning environments must be supported from early years right through to adulthood. The Department, the NCSE and relevant Ministers should conduct a full reassessment of the national demand for special schools with a view to establishing ones where necessary. We often talk about lifelong learning. The same principle must apply to special education. Traditional supports between early years, primary, post-primary and third level are inconsistent and this harms long-term outcomes. A centralised admissions system like the successful pilot in Dublin 15 should be rolled out nationally at both primary and post-primary levels. There is also a continuing shortage of qualified special education teachers and SNAs. Localised training hubs co-ordinated by the NCSE could support schools with strong SEN experience to train others, creating local communities of practice and reducing the need for travel.

I mentioned this to the Tánaiste about two or three weeks ago, but the access and inclusion model has supported more than 7,000 children annually in accessing early childhood care and education programmes. However, due to inadequate data sharing between the Department of children and the Department of Education, crucial information is lost when children move to primary school. Establishing a data sharing mechanism would give the Department of Education up to two years' notice to plan for SNAs, ASD classes and resource teachers, ensuring a smoother transition and better outcomes for all.

Finally, we need a publicly-funded ASD preschool in every town so families are not forced to travel long distances. Education begins at birth. By investing in inclusive care and early education, we can give children the fair and equal start they deserve.

Amendment put.

An Ceann Comhairle

In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is deferred until the weekly division time this evening.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 30 Apr 2025

Special Education: Motion [Private Members]

Deputies

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Apr 2025