Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will ask a wider question on the provision of special classrooms, which are a standard feature of new school buildings. We all accept that it is less challenging that they are planned for new school buildings, which are usually configured around considerations of things like universal design and so on, which will make those schools more fit for purpose in terms of providing for special educational needs, SEN. We would all be more concerned about the difficulty of retroactively making provision for special school classrooms. I struggle to think of how many schools have spare classrooms for which they have not found a use. That is also something that is mentioned in terms of trying to make space for accommodating therapies. SEN classrooms are usually heavily used in the schools I have looked at.

What basic metric is applied in terms of population? I will give autism as an example. We know there are different figures, but a figure of 1 in 68 is often applied in terms of incidences of autism. We could talk about incidences of other neurodivergent conditions. It may not be standard across the entire population but we should certainly be using those kinds of figures and metrics to plan in terms of the provision that is needed within a specific town. What metric is applied when looking at Tramore, for example, which has a population of approximately 12,000? Is there a basic metric we apply to predict how many special classrooms will be needed at primary and post-primary level?