School Staff
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-16
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Shane Curley (FF), Cultural and Educational Panel

I acknowledge the work the Minister of State has been doing. An extra 860 special educational teachers is a mammoth investment. Any time I have approached him, whether about school transport or special education, he has been incredibly approachable and I acknowledge my appreciation for that.
The special education side of it is obviously something we need to hugely focus on but what I am trying to get at today with this extra 1,000 teachers is more about mainstream education and the student who has additional needs who may thrive in the mainstream setting if the student-teacher ratio is brought down a small bit. It can be a very lonely place for a child, particularly if they have educational needs, to be in the classroom and feel totally lost and not know what to do, simply because the teacher is spread too thin. What this motion speaks to today is to try to bring down that student-teacher ratio, give the teacher a chance to cater to the needs of every student and allow that student who needs a extra little bit of help to thrive in the context of a reduced student-teacher capacity.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-16