Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-10
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

I understand fully the need for specialised provision of education across Galway. The Deputy is quite right. I did visit St. Oliver's and Esker National School recently.
I know the points he made in relation to St. Vincent's and the work being done by Ability West. The Deputy also raised an issue here, even though I did not directly respond to it, in relation to equine therapy and the equine centre. I understand that and welcome his interest in it.
I will give a small bit of context and then deal with a number of the issues. In County Galway, there are 180 special classes that are now operating providing capacity for over 1,080 students. This includes 12 new special classes for the 2025-26 school year. In addition, 16 new special schools have been established around the country over the last while. Seven of these schools are in County Galway and are educating 352 students with more complex educational needs. These schools are supported by the Department and the NCSE, National Council for Special Education. The NCSE has a clear picture of local demand for special class places for 2026-27 and is reviewing the information. As the Deputy quite rightly outlined, we have a number of announcements in relation to County Galway. I thank the school authorities, the patrons and the management of the schools for their engagement with the NCSE and our Department in relation to this.
The NCSE and ourselves will be working very closely with families either before or after 1 October. To be very clear, 1 October was the deadline we brought forward this year. In 2025, the notification date was 1 February. We very much felt this time last year that we were too late within the school year to have identified the children that would have special educational needs at both special classes and special schools. After my appointment this time last year, one of the first decisions we made was to bring in the new 1 October deadline, so that we would have sight of the challenges we have earlier in the school year. That has brought huge benefit to us in terms of the numbers and forward planning. Like previous governments, we have been berated in relation to forward planning but we are doing a huge amount of forward planning. There has been engagement by both the Department and the NCSE with the patron bodies and school authorities right through the summer and beyond. A number of families have come to the NCSE post 1 October. I assure the Deputy we will be working very closely with all families to make sure we can provide the best possible place for them in the 2026-27 school year.
The responsibility for that role is something that I take extremely seriously. In my engagement right across the country over the last 12 months, we have visited many schools, as the Deputy outlined. Many of them are looking for additional classes but many have additional classes and are doing amazing work in relation to this. The Minister, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, and her predecessor, Deputy Helen McEntee, and I have worked extremely closely to ensure we are doing the right thing for children and their families. We have engaged with all Deputies right across the House in making sure the concerns they have, quite rightly, in representing families are brought to our attention. We will try to find a resolution between the NCSE, the Department and ourselves.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-10