Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps I can clarify that. A special class is defined in the legislation. A special class means a class that has been established by a school, with the approval of the Minister, to provide an education exclusively for students with a specified category or categories of special educational need. The admissions policy of the school must state that it has special classes and it is specified what they provide for, and there is an admissions process. If we did not have these provisions, the default position of the Act would be that any mainstream child making an application could insist that they be admitted with respect to these special provisions.

The purpose of this measure is to protect the special provision for children who have special needs. That is not to say that if we set up a unit, a school can discriminate and say it does not want to take in a child with this special need or that other special need. It is to protect those special provisions from being occupied at the insistence by a child with just mainstream needs. It is solely to protect the provision for the purposes for which it was intended and that is made clear by the school in its admissions policy. This has been requested by the special needs bodies. They are seeking to protect the integrity of their provision for the children who have such needs.