Special Educational Needs Dail Éireann — 2026-06-16 ============================================================ John Connolly (FF), Galway West Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit. I welcome the Minister of State's final comments. I would welcome very much that we would provide the opportunity for the families who are making this very genuine case. He is correct. I have met two families in these circumstances but no doubt there are many more who would benefit from the provision of a class for children who have a challenge with speech and language. I noted in my previous contribution the distance parents will travel to meet the needs of their children. In this review done by the Department's inspectorate in 2021, it was found children travelled up to 45 km to attend a class for children with additional needs. It is difficult for them to maintain contact with their local school during placement. Placement would be generally for two academic years. For a child in national school between the ages of five and 11 or 12, a journey of 45 km every day from Monday to Friday is arduous. They should be able to access adequate education provision much closer to home. I understand we cannot, unfortunately, have such a class in each mainstream school but we need to look at the map and at where in the country there are gaps in the provision of such classes. Can the class be placed appropriately in an area that makes it difficult for nobody and where everybody has a suitable opportunity to attend? The other crucial aspect, and we all know this because the data and the study from the inspectorate show this, is the importance of early intervention and how the outcomes can be enhanced by earlier intervention. This review, undertaken by the Department's inspectorate, highlights that many of the children attending have very positive outcomes and find they can in many instances overcome the language delay. I appreciate the answer. I particularly appreciate the opportunity to bring a delegation to meet the Minister and I certainly will take him up on that. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-16