Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
============================================================

Barry Ward (FG), Dún Laoghaire

I endorse everything the Minister of State said regarding the figures and the numbers. I acknowledged at the outset that the recent tranches have delivered 268 classes. All of that is extremely welcome. Ms Paula Kelly of St. Anne's's National School in Shankhill and Mr. John Fingleton, the permanent principal, have done the forecasting for the school in terms of what is needed. That is why the school has made its applications. Ms Kelly and Mr. Fingleton deserve credit for that. Similarly, Naomi Russo in Rathmhichael Parish National School or the teachers in Scoil Mhuire, Shankill, have a view of what they need in the future. Notwithstanding all of that, we still have a situation where we have children with no SEN class available to them for next September. Honestly, it is not good enough.
What measures is the Department taking to take stock of what is going to be required in the future? How is it going to guarantee that it will meet the demand? How is it going to say to the two families I mentioned earlier that this will not happen and that it will supply a class or a space for them in September? As I said, they have bent over backwards doing what is expected of them. They have got the assessments for the their son and daughter, respectively, and made applications to multiple schools, but they are still getting a point-blank “No” from the Department. The Department is not saying that out of malice or anything of that nature. Rather, the reality is that places are not available.
As a political body, we must ensure that the Department does not have to send out such responses. We must ensure that the answer is “Yes” when people provide documentary evidence that their child needs additional support. What forecasting is the Department carrying out, whether it is in respect of Shankill or anywhere else, in order to determine the number of places needed in the next two, three or ten years? What is it doing to ensure that the capacity is there to put in place those classes in the context of both the physical infrastructure and the human resources needed? How can we guarantee other families in Shankill that they will not be in this situation next year or the year after?

---

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/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29