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

I thank the Minister for her opening statement and welcome the €2 billion her Department is providing for special educational needs. That is 25% of the Department's budget. I compliment the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, on fighting for that budget and I hope we will see the same in next week's budget. I know an awful lot of resources have been achieved through that extra money including new special education teachers, extra SNAs, extra classes, school places and indeed new schools. I was delighted to welcome the Minister just last week to my own constituency for the opening of Stewarts special school's new building.

I agree with the Minister that there should be no barriers for education. I thank her, her officials and the NCSE for all they do to break down the barriers that do unfortunately exist. Notwithstanding the level of investment that goes into this area, as the Minister said herself in a response to a parliamentary question from me, there are still some parts of the country where an increase in population has created a shortage of school places for children with additional needs. My constituency of Dublin Mid-West is one of those areas. We have a rapidly growing population in Clondalkin, Lucan and our village areas but that population growth has not been met by additional capacity. As the Minister will be aware, we have a number of primary and secondary schools awaiting new buildings. It is essential that autism spectrum disorder, ASD, units and special educational needs classrooms are part of that capital investment. I do a lot of work with the Clondalkin Autism Parents Support Network, which has been doing an unofficial audit of ASD places available from next September. They cannot get that information from schools. I would love if the Minister would use her time here to outline what plans there are to invest in growing areas like this and to explain how those decisions on the allocation of resources, capital expenditure and plans are made and what data are used. She also may be able to give us an indication of the talent pipeline when it comes to teachers and SNAs. Is attracting talent into special education a challenge? Is there something more we could be doing if it is? I would also be interested to know how the Department is monitoring the actions of schools to make sure they are not discriminating against children with disabilities.