Special Educational Needs
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-03
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Frankie Feighan (FG), Sligo-Leitrim

I thank Senator Curley for bringing me in and raising this on the floor of the Seanad. I am answering on behalf of the Minister for Education and Youth, Hildegarde Naughton.
Since 2020, more than €6 billion has been invested in schools across the country under the national development plan, involving the completion of over 1,300 school building projects. As the Senator is aware, the Government announced in July a capital allocation of €7.55 billion for the Department of Education and Youth for the period 2026 to 2030 under the national development plan. As part of this NDP allocation, the Department will place a strong emphasis on provision for children with special educational needs, with a particular focus on meeting the demand for school places. A focus of this plan will be, in the first instance, maximising the capacity of the existing school estate as much as possible. Additional capacity will be provided through targeted and prioritised projects that will be delivered over the course of 2026 to 2030. This will meet the most urgent and prioritised needs.
There are two post-primary schools in Loughrea where enrolments peaked in 2024 and are projected to remain stable. St. Raphael's was approved funding under the additional school accommodation scheme for the provision of modular accommodation under the Department's special educational needs reconfiguration and modular accommodation programme to provide two mainstream classrooms, one SEN and one technology room. The project has progressed and the Department is awaiting the confirmation of project completion to issue the final payment. The school was also previously approved to enter the Department's pipeline for a project under the additional school accommodation scheme to provide six mainstream classrooms. This project was completed in September 2022.
St. Brigid's College was approved to enter the Department's pipeline for a project under the additional school accommodation scheme and is devolved for delivery to Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board, GRETB. A design team has been appointed to progress the project through the necessary architectural stages of design, statutory approvals, procurement and construction. The project will provide 14 mainstream classrooms, three science laboratories, a textiles room, a design and communications graphics-technical graphics room, an art room, one technology preparation area, ancillary accommodation and a four-classroom special educational needs base. This project is currently at stage 2a of the architectural planning process. A stage 2a submission was received and reviewed by the Department, but as the submission did not include all the necessary information, a revised stage 2a report was requested. This has been received and is undergoing review from both a technical and a cost perspective. Once this review is complete, the Department will contact GRETB and provide guidance on the next steps for this project.
Budget 2026 recently provided funding for a further 3,000 special class and special school places to be provided for the 2026-27 school year. The NCSE sanctioned 407 new special classes, and over 300 new special school places are being provided for the 2025-26 school year.
To improve future planning for the next school year, families were encouraged to engage with the NCSE by 1 October 2025 for the 2026-27 school year, four months earlier than in previous years. The earlier timeline will assist the NCSE in approaching local schools to open new special classes earlier. The earlier timeline is also being introduced to provide more time for the establishment of new special classes and additional special school capacity.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:25+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-03