Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On the national co-ordinator for special schools, we are placing particular emphasis this year on supporting special schools to run the programme. As I said, we have seen a 50% increase in that, which is positive, and we hope to build on that. The function of the national co-ordinator is to take the overall view and support and engage where there might be challenges. We have deliberately resourced the programme managers and the schools organisers into the schools. For example, I referenced that we had the online portal as well for people who might be interested in registering, whether they are teachers, SNAs, therapists or whatever. We have 1,500 of them, distinct from those who are already registered in their schools. The purpose of that is to support the national co-ordinator where there might be, as the Senator identified, an area where a school is not in a position to run it. Separate to that, a great body of work is being done to work with other providers that might be in a position to come in and take over the running of the summer provision programme. That is not necessarily the schools themselves.

On the Senator's area, 53 schools in Kildare are running the summer provision programme and three are special schools. If there is a particular query or anything he wants to raise, I have no issue with that and I will look at it afterwards. That is a-----