Special Educational Needs Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24 ============================================================ Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to reassure the House that the Department of Education and Youth and the NCSE are committed to ensuring that all children can access an education suitable to their needs. The Department continues to engage intensely with the NCSE in relation to forward planning for new special provision to ensure every child has a place in an educational setting best fitted to their educational need. No policy position can be static and needs to evolve alongside the student population and the needs presenting. If we look back since the foundation of the State, education has constantly being evolving. There have been major movements along the way but it has constantly been evolving, as it has the world over as well. As mentioned, how we support children with dyslexia and additional literacy needs is an area that needs reform and I am engaging with officials on what this reform looks like. I will be advancing this as quickly as possible. I am also working on a new measure that will see the provision of enhanced supports in mainstream schools for students experiencing literacy difficulties. I hope over the next while that we will be able to update the House accordingly. I thank the Deputy for his commitment to this matter and for the meetings he has had with the various advocacy groups. I take very seriously the concerns they have - not just his groups', but also the concerns of others we have met across the country, along with other parents and school authorities - in relation to dyslexia and how we need to look at it into the future. We are looking at reform and how best we can meet the needs because every cent that is spent on special education will have enormous benefit for the child, their families and the State. --- 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/2026-09-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-24