Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State to our meeting this morning. As the Chairman noted, I am substituting for Senator O’Loughlin, who is otherwise engaged.

First, I wish to pay tribute to the Minister of State, to the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, and to their officials. While this can be a difficult area and we always will have issues and questions, I acknowledge that much progress has been made in recent years. Although we all still have issues with schools, we acknowledge that much improvement has been made. In her opening statement, the Minister of State referred to 2011 and showed us how far things have come along since then. Nevertheless, we still have many issues to deal with.

I wish to raise one specific issue that is of great concern to me at present. Although it is not widespread, in some schools there is a slowness to accept special educational needs classes. I think that is regrettable. Is the Minister of State aware of this, because I have come across it? She might find there is a need for it in a locality in which, despite the best efforts of the Department that even include allocating the funds to progress with a project, in some cases there is a reluctance to do so. That is highly regrettable. At this stage, I might ask the Minister of State to make a comment on that.