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Dail Éireann · 2023-03-23

Special Educational Needs

FG Josepha Madigan · Dublin Rathdown · Minister of State at the Department of Education

Party shown is the one held on 2023-03-23, frozen at parse time — not the speaker's party today.

Summary of this debate

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I have been signalling the need for a special school in east County Cork for quite a while. The Minister of State will be aware of the fabulous Carrigtwohill school campus which is being built at the moment, which will free up the building of Scoil Mhuire Naofa. I ask the Minister to consider establishing a special school in that building, which is already there, will not require any capital investment and with slight modification could provide for this much-needed special school in the area.

He is a real advocate for east County Cork in terms of trying to provide a special school. As he knows, there are 14 special schools in County Cork. That is not to say there is not a need for a special school in east Cork.

Built by scoring every sentence in the debate on how distinctive its language is, then quoting the highest-scoring ones back word for word and in the order spoken. Nothing is paraphrased or invented — if a sentence appears here, it was said in the chamber. Drawn from 96 words across 2 contributions by 2 speakers.

Most used terms in this debate

How often each word appears across the whole debate, ranked by how distinctive it is to this debate rather than common to all parliamentary language.

special 7
school 6
cork 4
east 3
rochestown 1
naofa 1
carrigtwohill 1
modification 1
signalling 1
county 3
mhuire 1
fabulous 1

The full debate

All 2 contributions, start to finish, in the order they were made. The one you came here for is highlighted.

FG David Stanton

I have been signalling the need for a special school in east County Cork for quite a while. The Minister of State will be aware of the fabulous Carrigtwohill school campus which is being built at the moment, which will free up the building of Scoil Mhuire Naofa. I ask the Minister to consider establishing a special school in that building, which is already there, will not require any capital investment and with slight modification could provide for this much-needed special school in the area.

FG Josepha Madigan this contribution

I thank the Deputy for his question. He has brought this matter up with me on a number of occasions. He is a real advocate for east County Cork in terms of trying to provide a special school. As he knows, there are 14 special schools in County Cork. In fact, there will be 15 when Rochestown opens in the near future. We have opened three new special schools in the last three years, two this year alone. That is not to say there is not a need for a special school in east Cork.

I know the Department is aware of the matter. I will bring it to the Minister's attention that the Deputy raised it today.