Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)

A huge amount of work has been done by the Department, the National Council for Special Education and the primary schools on special education. When I came into this job, many people were advising us to look at international best practice and one of the best examples was in Scotland. When we went to Scotland to look at this, the secretary for education there said we should not copy Scotland but instead should look closely at what we are doing because our special education accommodation model is being looked at across the European Union and elsewhere.

On the other specific question of need, the Department of education and the NCSE are working to look at where the need is and where the children are and trying to put the classes as close as possible to where the need is.

Everyone understands that the crisscrossing by bus or other transport is not sustainable and is not in the best interests of the pupils or families. However, the challenge is that the six pupils are put into a class and may start at a young age in that class. Those six children will be in primary school until they are 12 or 13 years of age and then a need comes up in the community. Is it the case that we must open a special class in the neighbouring school? If six children are going to one school and a new class opens in the next parish, it is not possible to say that a child is closer to the next parish and therefore should move on. Relationships will have been built among the six students and the families will have built relationships, so it is important that there is the least amount of disruption to those six students. Some people might want to move anyway, but the point the Deputy made was that it was important that we try to ensure the need was dealt with in the local community insofar was possible. A lot of work has been done at school level and there are great grants from the Department of €30,000 and €70,000 for repurposing. However, it is important to have the least amount of disruption so as to have better outcomes for the children.