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

On SENOs and special educational needs, the NCSE is part of the REALT and the REALT co-ordinators are engaging extensively with schools, families and housing bodies to ensure any child with an additional need receives appropriate education.

We are talking about 6,000 children. If we take the average that 1% of children require special classes and a further 1% need to go to special schools, we will have approximately 60 children in each category. As I stated, we only have seven or eight Ukrainian children in special classes and special schools because we are not assessing them at this time. The advice is not to assess children when they are coming from war-torn countries but to take the psychological first-aid approach first. NEPS is there to support and as the enrolments proceed over the summer, we will get a better idea of how many children we have. I expect that those with extremely complex issues tend to stay closer to Ukraine because of travel difficulties. We do not have a large number with disabilities or complex needs in the country.