Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central

My concern is that when the portal closed on 1 October, parents were no longer able to apply. Was that a way of saying that, for example, 600 parents applied for their children through the portal and we were able to provide those places? The vacant places that the Minister of State talks about, and I have raised this previously, are phantom places because if there are children at home without an appropriate school place, it does not matter how many vacant places we have. If they are not appropriate, they are a waste of space and a waste for a child.
I am also concerned about the issue of assessment of need. If we are taking away the need for an assessment of need to gain a special educational place but there will be an educational aspect to it, who is going to do that? Are they going to be qualified to do it? If a child rocks up to a school in September, how will the school forward plan for the needs of that child? How do we make sure that the school is the appropriate school for that child? I am really concerned that we have not got a handle on that. We are now entering into a new phase in terms of how we allocate places when we have not managed the phase we are currently in.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11