Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

We have developed an extremely convoluted system of getting appropriate school places for children. That system was developed over many years and it causes frustration for families, children and school communities.
I will deal with the 1 October deadline first. The deadline was brought back from 1 February to 1 October to get a better handle on the system and to understand the level of need earlier in the school year. We will be sanctioning classes in the next couple of days, which is four months earlier than last year. That will be rolled out over quarter 1 of 2026, which will give greater certainty.
In terms of the assessment of need, it is a key component. We have constantly said that parents do not have to have an assessment of need to access special education but we have to bring clarity to that. Departmental officials and the education partners are meeting today in relation to this and their work will be ongoing because we need to bring absolute clarity as to who is making the decisions. The NCSE will be critically involved in this. We need to clarify who is going to support the school communities because if we do not get this process correct, we will not get the goodwill and buy-in from education partners, which is the crucial piece. We need buy-in from parents, teachers and school communities and, most importantly, good outcomes for the children.

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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