Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. McKelvey. I will follow up on my initial question to Dr. Redmond. He mentioned that there is a bottleneck in Cork. I believe 36 ASD classes are due to come to Cork between now and September. Many of these have already been announced but many are yet to be announced. I was speaking to the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, about this only last week.

These classes are not always announced for various reasons, including the fear that the project might be kicked out to the following year and so on. The issue for parents who have applied for enrolment for the academic year beginning this September is that, if an ASD class has not been announced, the school will plan on the basis of what exists now and not on what may exist because any new ASD class may be kicked into the following year. The parents of people with special educational needs are finding that, even if a class has been committed to, although it may not be committed to for 2022 but rather for 2023 or 2024, it is difficult to decide where to apply to. They wonder whether they should go on a waiting list. A myriad of things pop into their heads.