Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is right about early intervention and looking at the different milestones that children meet after they are born and along the way. That is a key part of this and it is within the community in primary care. These are the conversations we are having at the Cabinet committee.

I note there is an enrolment bubble coming into second level. Enrolments in primary education will fall by more than 100,000 over the next decade.

To respond to the Deputy's point about accommodation and the pressures on the system, it is important that children have access to a special class locally. We have different conversations here around children having to travel and not being in the same school as their siblings. We have to work with schools to see what their footprint is and if they could accommodate a special class. What we do not want is siblings going to different schools, if we can avoid that. We are looking at existing schools to see if they have a space that could be reconfigured, to a very high standard and within a window of six to eight weeks, so that children with additional needs are at the heart of schools.

I talked about the culture change as well. I know it is not always possible. I am not saying it is in every single case but I believe we need to have special classes in mainstream schools and working with schools as well. I gave the example of talking to a principal who said the whole school was transformed by having children with additional needs in the school and what that did for empathy, for staff, the caretaker and the local community. He spoke of the kindness this brings out in other children in the school community. There is no perfect solution for everyone. For some children, the solution will be a special school. We all understand that. However, that is what we are looking to achieve here.

There are 19 new special classes in Galway, which brings the number in the area up to 168.

The NCSE policy advice is that we should work to enable all children to attend their local school. That is what I was saying. That is why we have to work with schools - this was always the NCSE's role - to look at the space they have, be it a modular unit, a building or a special class within the existing space. That is where we want to go.