Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

-----has increased significantly over the past two to three years and five years. The Deputy should just go through the figures - they are objectively there. They increased dramatically last year and will increase I think by 300 more again this year. I do not know how the Deputy can credibly put that out there that somebody was questioning the very existence of special classes when we are increasing them exponentially. As I said, the census data indicates significant increases in the number of young people and children presenting or identifying as having a disability. I see the same is happening in the United Kingdom. There are pressures there also. We have to deal with that and that is why the percentage of the overall education budget, which is now €13 billion and growing, is very high and rightly so. We have prioritised special education. Last year, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, did exceptional work in a very short space of time to try to close the gap in terms of the number of children seeking places. All of us on this side of the House meet parents of children with special needs, always. I never stopped meeting parents of children with special needs. I accept they have to fight a very hard battle for services not just in education but more particularly in health. That is why we are bringing therapies into the school system. Ninety will be recruited this year. I made it a red line issue in the most recent election that we would have a school-based therapy service. I believe in a multidisciplinary approach to help children with special needs. That is something we will deliver on during the lifetime of this Government. I would have no issue in sitting down with members of the Opposition and working through some of these issues. We need to very careful when we say the role is too narrow. We really need to think that through. We need more special education teachers. There needs to be more modules in training colleges in respect of special needs. There has been progress in that regard. We have a very comprehensive view of what we have to do in terms of expansion but the question is one of increased investment, not decreased investment.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24