Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)

The Minister of State and colleagues are very welcome. I will use my time to again highlight to him the clear need for increased special education provision in the Youghal catchment area of east Cork. I will go into quite a bit of detail but he will be very familiar with the case from previous engagement on it.

As the Minister of State knows, I have been working with a parents' campaign group in Youghal, which has set out a case in a very thorough, carefully considered document for substantial secondary level provision that would allow children in the Youghal catchment area to be educated locally. Those children have additional needs that are not currently met in mainstream schools. Youghal has just one secondary school, Pobalscoil na Tríonóide, which has somewhere between 1,100 and 1,200 students. That school has what is known as an autism hub. Within the catchment area for this one secondary school in Youghal, there is a total of 18 primary level special classes.

However, that one secondary school has just three special classes and is oversubscribed. An extension is planned for the school, but my understanding is that it will not add capacity beyond what is currently provided in modular accommodation. It will essentially replace those temporary buildings with permanent ones.

As regards some of the parents I have engaged with and whom the Minister of State met with in March in Youghal, their children are attending primary school in Bunscoil Mhuire, and those children are happy with the level of support and the setting provided there. The pobalscoil is an excellent secondary school with committed staff and an autism hub that does invaluable work, allowing children who attend it to integrate in the secondary school, but the hub is not suitable for all autistic children. For many, the sheer busyness of a large secondary school, the sensory overload of crowded corridors and the recurring changes of teacher and classroom all create a very uncomfortable environment where it is extremely difficult to learn and to regulate emotions. These children need settings that are calmer, more predictable and with less disruption. They need an environment that is built around their needs, not one where they are expected to continually adapt to circumstances that are overwhelming for them.

I will give the Minister of State one example. A 16-year-old autistic girl in Youghal tried her best to settle in the pobalscoil. She was very much supported by her family and the school. She has a high level of intellectual ability but was overwhelmed by the clamour of the school setting, and despite the best efforts of herself, her family and the school staff, she could not sustain a placement there. She is now attending a grind school in Cork city where she will complete her leaving certificate and where she is thriving academically. Because of the smaller class sizes, the calm and the predictability there, she is much more at ease within herself and better able to focus on her schoolwork. To access that, however, she must travel into Cork city every day, and that involves hours lost sitting in traffic on long journeys simply because the right kind of provision does not exist in her own town. That is not fair on her and not fair on her family.

Of course, she is not alone because, at present, 22 children from the Youghal catchment travel to St. John's Special School in Dungarvan, County Waterford. To access St. John's, a child has to have a diagnosis of an intellectual disability. For some children as young as five, their day starts with a bus leaving at 7.10 a.m. and they may not arrive at the school until almost 9 o'clock, after multiple stops. That is over an hour and a half each way on a bus for a five-year-old every day. You can only imagine the stress this causes over time, with children arriving to school and home exhausted and emotionally disregulated and families worn down over time.

When we have conveyed these realities to the Minister of State's Department, with regard to planning, not just for the future of the Youghal catchment but for the present also, the response so far has been essentially "computer says no". There has been no meaningful engagement with the details of the case that was presented in March by the campaign group, and there is a lot of frustration and disappointment about that. The group is very constructive and keen to re-engage.

The Minister of State mentioned the financial cost of school transport. In the 2023-24 school year, €78.9 million was spent by the State on taxis for children for journeys out of area. A total of €15.7 million of that was for Cork. The parents I engage with in Youghal speak of facing a cliff edge on completion of secondary school. They are very happy with the level of support they have at the moment but they are facing into serious uncertainty.

It is clear we need a very significant increase in special education provision in Youghal and the surrounding catchment. One oversubscribed secondary school cannot meet the full spectrum of need for that large catchment of 18 primary level special classes. We cannot have children with intellectual disabilities travelling daily to Dungarvan or Carrigtwohill, very significant distances, or, worse, to Waterford city or Cork city. We cannot have autistic children with average or above-average intellectual ability having to drop out of secondary school and risk poor attainment, reduced career opportunities and mental health setbacks because they too do not have a school equipped to meet their needs in their community, as is the right of all children with disabilities.

The Bridging the Gap campaign group in Youghal is not asking for luxuries; it is seeking the basics and the same chance for its members' children to reach their potential, as any other family would expect. What are the Minister of State's plans for increasing special education provision for families in the Youghal catchment area? Will he and his colleagues here meet with the Bridging the Gap campaign group again in the near future?