Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-12
============================================================

Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for letting me come in. I agree with Deputy Lawless and the Minister of State that the planning is most welcome because there is then an opportunity to foresee what is going to come down the tracks. However, I have raised several times that the 1 October cut-off point has been very detrimental to parents and I am still hearing they are not being given letters of eligibility and are being told the portal has closed. What is the solution to that? I am still concerned. I had a meeting yesterday with a number of parents, teachers and principals about special education and there is still huge confusion. The Minister and Minister of State are doing their best on the forward planning and I appreciate that but a bit of clarity would help. Families feel there is a drip feed of information on the plan being put in place for next year, so the speedier that is the better. I am especially worried about those who are going into post-primary who still have not heard where they are going. The transition is very important, particularly the one from primary to secondary school.

---

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/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12