Dr. Niall Muldoon:

Certainly this is an issue we are very much aware of. It is something I am in the process of looking at separately at the moment. We heard of a high profile situation last year in Dublin west where more than 80 children were due to start national school and there were no spaces for them. That led to the utilisation by the Minister for Education of a special power to designate a school to take children with special needs. That is a nuclear option which suggests that the system has let the children down again. Most of the children would have been identified as requiring a place from the day they were born, or very soon afterwards. The fact that the Department of Education's building unit did not have the spaces in place is a real indictment of poor planning. My understanding is that it happened in a number of places again this year in Dublin south and in Cork. We need to commit public servants to find a way to make this happen, to plan ahead, to understand what the needs are, to know what the population is like in the local area and to provide for those children in a proactive manner, not retrospectively or by forcing principals on the last day of June to come up with a space by September. It is a failure of the system when one gets to the stage where the Minister has to press the nuclear button on a designation. We are going to take a look at that and see if there is any way we can push the Government and the services to do better in that regard. It is a real indictment of the service provided to children and to parents. Parents are the ones to push.

Even where designation happens, it does not always happen in the area that is most suitable for the children. Many children, especially in Dublin, will travel 15 or 20 miles to attend the nearest school that provides a service. That is a long journey on public transport in a Dublin setting. In rural areas, children might have to travel 40 or 50 miles on a school bus or in a taxi.

We need to commit to planning ahead with multi-annual budgeting so that, knowing the number of children being born who are recognised as having additional needs, the schools will provide for them ahead of schedule. All new schools being built are being designed with special education classrooms. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is considering a plan for the future of education for children with special needs. That may include more campus-type settings where all of the children would be on the same campus. All of these initiatives are positive but the simple question is, how many children in our respective areas need special classrooms or supports? That information should not be difficult to generate in this day and age.

I am sorry for the parents who find themselves in this situation. I have engaged with the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, on this matter. I brought it to her attention the first time we met. I will follow up on that in the near future.