Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Thomas Byrne (FF), Meath East

We have to guarantee those places for children. The Government is acutely conscious of that. Work is ongoing to ensure that this guarantee, which, in my view, derives from the Constitution, is fulfilled for every child who needs a school place. The Department continues to engage intensively with the NCSE to forward plan for new special provision to get a place for every single child in the setting that best suits their needs. The NCSE is continuing to engage with a large number of schools across Dublin in the context of sanctioning further new special classes for the coming school year. While there was an announcement some weeks ago, there is still a lot of work going on.
That was the first batch of them and there will be further batches. The Department and the NCSE have been working on this earlier in the year and I welcome what the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, has done in this regard because it gives more certainty. It is not perfect but there is more information available and at an earlier stage than was the case previously. Again, I have no doubt that the Department and the NCSE will be out with further announcements in the next few weeks. In the meantime, if Deputies Wall and Ward wish to engage directly with the Minister of State in relation to those particular individuals, I am sure he would very much welcome that.

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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