Special Educational Needs
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

I thank the Deputy for his kind comments. We do not turn water into wine every time but we do certainly try to help and assist in any way we can. I accept the Deputy's comments on this. We started out this time last year, just after 1 October, with a huge number of students, at primary and post-primary and in special schools, looking for places. We have, through the massive work that continued throughout the year in the Department of education and the NCSE, brought that down to a very small cohort of children, although any one person is one too many. We are working on this. We have sight of it. We meet weekly. We chair a meeting in the Department with the NCSE on a weekly basis to make sure that we have sight of what is happening and the movement over the last number of weeks has been quite considerable.
I take the point that the Deputy makes in terms of the middle group. If one looks at the provision of specialised education, at primary school we have advanced and invested a huge amount into special classes. I would like to thank all of the school communities, patron bodies and everybody involved in that but we have a lot of work to do to make sure we have corresponding provision at post-primary. Going back 20 or 25 years ago, international policy was not about building special schools. It was seen as negative and the commentary was that it should not been done but we have really ramped up the provision of specialised school places and will continue to do so, year in and year out, over the next number of years because we want to ensure that children who have complex needs and educational requirements that are best suited to special schools have places.
I do not want to go into the specifics that the Deputy has raised but I am certainly aware of them. I will be working to try to find solutions for every family over the next number of weeks.

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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