Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-19
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Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth

With regard to Ardee Educate Together, I met the design team and Louth County Council alongside the principal. In fairness, we were told there is a proposal. I accept that it is late in the game. The building project is fabulous, as I know, having visited the site. We really need to get this issue sorted or it will be chaos on the morning of the opening of the school. There are a number of autism classes. We need to ensure that the children can arrive without a level of chaos. I ask the Minister of State to follow up so we can ensure that the communication on how those proposals are going happens straightaway.
It frightens me when I hear the term “under assessment”. I accept the Minister of State's point that some of these are technically new applications. However, some of that is after a considerable number of years of over and back between principals and the Department. The Minister of State can see the pile of papers in front of me. It is correspondence between the Department and these schools. There is absolute frustration among the schools. The communication from Monksland National School to the Department reads, "Do you think it is appropriate that staff do not have a staff room to have their break and lunch?" That is the reality at the minute. Talk of assessments and demographics is not going to help that.
It continues:
Do you think it is appropriate that pupils cannot access physical education and that their engagement with it is entirely weather dependent? Do you think it is fair and dignified that pupils are taught in corridors because we do not have enough special education teaching rooms to house our SET teachers?
A communication from the school in Louth village states that its special education teachers are teaching in a cupboard, the staff room and the corridor due to lack of space. As the school hall is out of bounds, children with additional needs are missing out on vital movement and regulation breaks.
We cannot be constantly dealing with these issues. We need to find a better way. I ask that there is better communication, and also that I be made aware of that communication. In the nicest way I can put it, the communication the schools have had has been subpar.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-19