Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator asked a number of different questions. Senator Murphy mentioned earlier the slowness or reluctance that the Senator mentioned about opening special classes. It can be a cultural issue, but it can also be a suitable accommodation issue. Training and professional development is required. The NCSE provides, as I said earlier, exclusive and extensive support and training programmes as well as on-site and in-school visits. I mentioned earlier as well the increase in special classes, more generally, across the country. Specifically on Dublin 6 and Dublin 6W, the special education needs organiser, SENOs, as the Senator knows, work on the ground in terms of liaising with the schools regarding the availability of a space and have liaised in Dublin 6 and Dublin 6W on an extensive basis.

As the Senator will be aware, most of those schools are on very tight sites and generally tend to be oversubscribed, but the work is continuing. It is likely there will be a new ASD primary special class and one new ASD post-primary special class opening in Dublin 6W for September 2022. However, the two new schools in question are finalising steps to open these classes, and although they have not announced this publicly yet, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes in that regard. Separately, Bishop Shanahan National School and Bishop Galvin National School are taking steps to expand their existing special classes for two or three pupils to cater for the standard six each from September 2022. I imagine the Senator is already aware of that.

The question of regression that the Senator has raised is very important and is something I am acutely aware of since the pandemic started. It has been particularly difficult on children with additional needs, and I do not think any of us could say otherwise, particularly because of the loss of in-person learning. We have a number of programmes. We had the supplementary programme last Easter at a cost of €10 million and that helped some 14,000 children. We had the summer programme for which we doubled the funding to €40 million and there was an uptake of about 75% for that summer provision. We also had the Covid learning and support scheme, which, to be fair, does not just help children with additional needs but also other children who have perhaps been adversely impacted by Covid, and that was some €52.6 million. It is still ongoing and is of great assistance to these children.

The research is going to be important in terms of assessing what impact the school closures have had on children and their achievements. The inspectorate has commenced a series of research-focused inspections and it will be looking at overall trends to see how children have been impacted.

The Senator mentioned the role of SNAs in regard to ISL. Obviously, the new ISL scheme I mentioned earlier will be of great benefit to deaf children and children who are challenged in terms of hearing. We will have 40 different posts, 30 of which will be specialist in-class teachers and there will be ten who are advisers for schools in terms of ISL. It will be about translating what the teacher says, and not just the content but also the spirit of what they say. These are children whose primary means of communication is Irish Sign Language, so it should be of great assistance to those children.

I cannot recall what the Senator’s question was on the role of the SNA.