Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Yes, it is very reassuring. As a follow-up question, are there plans to open more of those classes on the basis of the obvious need that exists in many areas? One of things I see a lot is that the transitions between the various educational stages being a major issue. In that context, I welcome the increase in number of special classes in primary schools and give credit to the Minister of State for it. However, that is not translating into secondary schools. When people finish primary school, they ring every secondary school within a radius of an hour-and-a-half's drive. There are waiting lists to get into special classes in secondary schools. I presume the Department can carry out modelling to establish how many places are needed in primary schools and how many that will translate to for secondary schools. What work is going on in respect of making sure there is provision for that?

On the specific issue of special classes, so many national schools are saying that they do not have enough SNAs and that they want to cater for all the children in their communities. I know of a school that is fundraising through its committee to pay for somebody to come in and help because, otherwise, it will have to tell the children that they can only come in for a certain number of hours. The school really does not want to do that. One of the problems we saw in west Cork, particularly during the pandemic, was that many people relocated to the area from the city because they were working remotely. There was a subsequent uptick in the number of school places but for some reason the SNAs remained in the schools in which they were working rather than following the students to their new schools. It could take another year to get the required number of SNAs in the schools to which those children have moved. I will leave it at that and see if I have more time afterwards.