Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

On the investment programme to fund the construction of 62,000 additional primary and post-primary school places, does the Department take into consideration that a percentage of parents will not want their children to go through mainstream religious schools? Some schools are going to have to be built specifically for parents who do not want to baptise their children. How is that worked out by the Department? The Minister's presentation points out that there will be a physical school place, but that does not mean there will be a place for every pupil without forcing some students to go to a particular type of school or to a school outside of their locality.

My next question goes back to the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, special needs assistants, SNAs and resource teachers.

Obviously, a certain number of school children will not be able to access those resource teachers. Consequently, unless provision for the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, is increased, that area is being under-resourced. Does the Minister understand my point? Obviously, there is an entire layer of children about whom we do not know. I do not know what are the statistics but how many children have sought but not received such reports? How does one address that in outcomes, inputs and all these weird and wonderful ideas?