Education (Amendment) Bill 2024: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2025-10-16 ============================================================ Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth I do not doubt the Minister of State's sincerity. We have dealt with many issues many times and, in fairness, he has always made his best attempt to deal with those issues. On some level, we are dealing with a system that is far from perfect at this point. I will make a defence of this legislation. I thank Deputy Cummins for speaking on it and I reiterate what she said. A two-year run-in is just a sensible idea, which is why the Irish Primary Principals' Network proposed it. As I said before, I am not utterly wedded to this legislation. I would be only delighted to have a conversation afterwards and to hear then or in the near future that the Minister of State is moving in the direction of increasing the run-in time. I do not think anyone is going to complain once we see a common application system and once it is simple for parents to use. I think we welcome, while accepting all the issues that we will all have relating to communication, the 1 October deadline for parents notifying the NCSE. Again, we need to make our information systems a hell of a lot better because most of this information should already be known without any parent having to make contact, particularly when we are talking about children who are in the system. More work needs to be done for those who are in the early learning system to ensure that every part of the system communicates, particularly to ensure transitions. The fact is that there are still children who do not have appropriate places. Buildings have not been delivered. Issues exist with school transport. We need to make sure that sufficient time is provided to schools and the NCSE, but also that we take away some of the hassle and heartache from parents and children. We all know we could talk about the other issues that exist with assessments and that is long before we talk about the necessary supports and therapies. That is another thing that I have supported, in the sense of moving in the direction of having therapies in school. I think I have said it many times before. The logic is that you put the therapies and supports where the need is, which is in the school, which is in some cases the easiest place to deliver. It has also been said that this should probably happen at an earlier stage, in early learning centres. Not only should we provide those sorts of supports and ensure that we are involving not only SNAs, teachers and principals, but we should also be engaging with the family. The Minister of State and I have spoken many times before about making sure that we have the technological back-up, through assistive technology, that can facilitate everyone from the child to the parent, the teachers and the SNAs. That is absolutely vital. The problem is that we are starting on the journey far too late and probably in the wrong place. I welcome in-school therapies and the common application system but I need to see them in operation fully and properly. I foresee an issue with the 45 special schools. I imagine they will be absolutely inundated wih applications. It needs to be spread out and ramped up, and much needs to happen. That could take pressure off the whole children's disability network team, CDNT, system. We could eventually get to a situation where they could concentrate more on those bespoke requirements for those with more challenging needs. That is for a different day. I will not repeat what I have said before. This is usually the point at which I repeat everything that I have said before, but I will not. One of the issues the Minister of State brought up is that the proposed legislation allows for children and young people with special educational needs to apply for admission up to two years in advance. It is silent on the timelines for schools making decisions on admissions. It is not clear, therefore, that the legislation will achieve its aim of providing clarity for parents earlier. My proposed legislation is silent on the timeline for schools making a decision on admission because the policy objective is to provide, in legislation, for an appreciation that it can take time to facilitate special school places and to provide a longer timeframe within which schools can make this decision. When the information is available, it will result in additional questions that will need to be answered regarding what facilities and supports will be required. The Minister of State and I will not be in agreement on what is happening here. To use a term that is overused in this House, this is a missed opportunity. We could have refined the Bill on Committee and Report Stages. I would have had no issue with doing that. I hope, as I said, that the Minister of State will show movement, not only on school therapies and the common application system but also on delivering a system in which every child is provided with an appropriate place and some of the nightmares parents have to deal with are removed, and which ensures that everything is resourced. Communication is vital but it does not always happen. On a somewhat related issue, Bernard Gloster said the parents with the best view of the CDNTs are those who have a direct contact person, a person in play. The same circumstance applies here, so there should at least be communication, but that is not always the case. We are asking for the possibility of a greater run-in time, as proposed initially by the IPPN. It is not as if this is an idea thought up in my head; it comes from a point of view that educators know the issues that exist, everything from an administrative, building and supports point of view to the pressures schools and principals are under to the problems teachers and SNAs have. It is about ensuring we take away some of the pressure on parents and, in particular, on children. We have not fully had their backs. That needs to happen. I am going to leave it at that. I am deeply disappointed that this legislation is not proceeding. As I said, there were opportunities to change and refine it. It is a straightforward idea from the point of view of ensuring schools have enough time. I would like to think there will be some alternative means by which everything will be streamlined, the information deficit will be addressed and, beyond that, we will have a system that makes it as easy as possible for parents to make applications and then transition. If we allow a sufficient amount of time to deal with these problems, it would make things a hell of a lot more helpful. If it is not to be done through this legislation, it will have to be done by some other means. I would like to see movement on that. --- 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/2025-10-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:14+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-10-16