Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her reply. She has confirmed that there will be additional resources for children with disabilities, for example, in 2015. However, there has to be some level of stability and guarantee for all children with disability so that when they attend their local primary school, resources will be put in place for them. It has been proven internationally that such pupils thrive educationally in these situations.

Now that the foot is off cutbacks in resources, we need to keep the focus on such services. Many of these services have been cut over the last four or five years. Huge hits have meant that the Minister was unable to deal with class sizes, which is an important issue when one is working with children with disabilities in mainstream classes. Our primary classes are still the second largest in the EU, so we need to examine that in next year's budget.

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