Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 2 July 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth
Education for Children with Special Educational Needs: Discussion
2:00 am
Ms Áine Lynch:
That circular and the one last year very much put the onus on parents to contact the NCSE. On an interim basis, that seems reasonable because we need to get the information wherever we can, but we cannot rely on parents to know what to do at that age. It is not just that we cannot rely on parents, but that we should not have to, because these children are already in the system.
We have the greatest number of children in our early years system. People know about these children. They are involved in the HSE services with the CDNT so we know these children in the main. Parents should obviously have the right to contact the NCSE and inform it but there should be a robust data-sharing system in place that means these children, as soon as they are known in the system and hit the radar of the system, are followed and supported.
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