Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The policy for outside the Gaeltacht areas is progressing and it will go to public consultation before the end of this week. That is important. The Deputy referred to daoine ag féachaint ar an nGaelainn mar fhadhb, looking at Irish as a problem as opposed to a gift or a positive. I want to be very clear. Within the Department, we look upon it as integral to our identity and our culture. As I have already articulated, considerable work is being done in the Department to advance it, whether the Gaeltacht education policy or the new policy for Irish medium education outside the Gaeltacht. Another initiative that I am especially supportive of is supporting partial immersion for Gaeilge from early years to primary and on to post-primary. That pilot is a very important one because there will be enormous learning from it and opportunities to go beyond that. The representatives from COGG will speak to its agenda, the work it is doing, teacher supports and all that. The policy is going to public consultation before the end of the week.

The Deputy asked why there is such an increase in the number of students with exemptions. I referenced this previously. If we look at where we were in the 1990s, in 1998 we had 104 special education teachers in our system and 229 special needs assistants, SNAs. Today, we have 19,000 special education teachers and 20,000 SNAs.

I only reference those figures to show how far our understanding and appreciation of the entire area of special education has progressed. That progression has been transformative with regard to equality of opportunity and access for many students. The emphasis is on ensuring that the needs of students will be met as far as possible to accommodate them in mainstream. That is what we are achieving with regard to special classes that have been created and so on. That is why we are seeing such an increase.

We are also seeing in 2022 that 25% of students identify with special educational needs, which is far in excess of what would have been the case, to our knowledge, five or ten years ago. In recognition of that, some 27% of the Department of Education's budget is now expended in the area of special education. The emphasis on special education is to ensure that students and young people get the opportunity to access school and the curriculum to the best of their ability-----