Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for appearing before the committee to go through this issue with us. She has a very tough job in particularly challenging circumstances. I am pleased that she has been such a strong advocate for families of children with special needs. It has been a really tough time for them and it was not helped by all the false starts. We all agree on that. It is positive that they are now back to school, albeit not full time. They are in the right place and getting the supports to which they have a right, as Deputy Cairns said.

I agree with Deputy Canney's comment that special education is an essential service. We need to make sure we are protecting it in advance of any other potential curve balls that may come at us in the future. I hope we will not be back in lockdown again but no matter what comes at us, we must, as a Government, ensure we protect this essential service for our most vulnerable children.

I am aware that the Minister of State has done a great deal to get all the parties involved in talks to get children back into classrooms. It is unfortunate that children with special needs are not back at school full time. The Minister of State stated it was her intention to get special schools back to full capacity as soon as possible. What is her timeline or target for achieving that?

I welcome the commitment that was made to Senator Seery Kearney on the summer programme provision and thank the Minister of State for the information that she shared with us on that. It will be hugely helpful when it comes to us playing catch up in terms of the lost resources that these kids have had in the past year at this stage.

I am interested to learn about the new special classes that are coming on-stream. In the last budget we saw an increase in resources for new special classes. It was on foot of that the Minister of State had written to 39 schools in the south Dublin area. Can she give us an update and are there protected timelines for that?