Irish Language
Dail Éireann — 2024-02-13
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Norma Foley (FF), Kerry

I appreciate the concern that the Deputy is bringing to the floor. When we look at it, we have to look at primary and post-primary levels. We have seen a significant reduction in exemptions at primary level, yet at post-primary level there has been an increase, but it is an increase of about 3%. We need to look at that in the context of the fact that this is a new circular. In the first year of implementation there is always going to be greater uptake because there may well have been a backlog. We also need to look at the fact that in the post-primary sector there are over 18,000 students collectively from Ukraine who are now in the system. At post-primary level, 36,629 students have come into the education system from abroad in the past couple of years. During this period, the prevalence rate of autism has grown from 1.8% to over 3.2%. It is also worth nothing that there are now almost 9,000 pupils enrolled in special schools and a further almost 18,500 students enrolled in special classes. Since 2017-18, the percentage of post-primary students holding an exemption from the study of Irish has increased by roughly 3%.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-02-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:39+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-02-13