Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

I might make an overall comment about special education first. We are spending €1.7 billion in 2017 on special education. In 2007, we were spending about €800 million. There has been a huge commitment from the State under various Governments to enhancing expenditure to meet the needs of those with special educational needs. We are always seeking to try to make it as effective as possible with our SNA review, our new model and the various arrangements we have to support school transport. Balancing that with what we were talking about earlier in higher education, there has been a huge amount of investment in special education to try to meet the particular needs and try to be as helpful as we can to this group. We have to acknowledge that in all of the discussions we have. The issue for us is also about the effectiveness of the expenditure.

Coming back to the specific issue about ASD units, we obviously work with the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, on ASD units. It tries to advise and plan on where there is a need for ASD units to go. Typically in new builds and new post-primary schools, we put in ASD units as we are doing them. Typically, the NCSE and ourselves negotiate with primary schools and post-primary schools about the demand. There is always a difficulty, especially at different times of the year when there is an uncertainty about where demands arise. I am aware of different cases or groups of cases in which there are challenges. This has been debated at the Oireachtas committee on education and in the context of the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill. I and Mr. Tattan have discussed it with the Minister for consideration. We are looking through the issues around ASD units and the demand at second level to try to get an evidential basis for that demand and to see if it is being met. We believe the system is responding, but we need to double-check that having regard, as Deputy Connolly said, to information that is coming. We have to be responsive. We are hearing there are not sufficient places in certain areas. We are looking at that and at how we can meet that demand-----