Special Educational Needs Dail Éireann — 2022-05-12 ============================================================ Josepha Madigan (FG), Dublin Rathdown That planning for special education provision is one of my raisons d'être in the Department. The National Council for Special Education, which I have to hold to account in its planning for current and anticipated demand, is critical, and that is primarily done through the special educational needs organisers, SENOs, even though there can often be a narrative that it is under the section 37 mechanism. It is generally done through collaboration with schools that engage with parents, HSE officials and other stakeholders. We have to look at the SEN capacity over the next ten years from primary to post-primary level. We have to look at the space capacity in schools, the schools building programme, the expansion of projects and approval under the additional school accommodation schemes, where they can get that scheme and where it will be of assistance to open a special class. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-05-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:26+00:00 Sitting date: 2022-05-12