Mr. John Kearney:

I thank the Deputy. To recap in terms of where we have come from in the past decade, it has been quite spectacular in terms of the level of investment in the sense that the special classes just over a decade ago numbered slightly over 500. As we currently speak, over 2,466 special classes have been delivered. That has been complemented by an ambitious capital investment programme that has seen permanent accommodation in over 292 special classes and additional capacity for 112 classrooms in 22 special schools delivered through the national development programme capital investment period over the past three years.

A further 700 projects are currently progressing under the national development plan. They will deliver over 1,300 new special education needs classrooms and 200 replacement special education needs classrooms, catering for over 7,800 special education pupils across primary and post-primary. Almost 100 of these projects are currently on site and will ultimately deliver classroom spaces for over 1,000 additional children.