Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is unfair to say that it is misleading. My understanding of this, which I will have to get clarified because there is obviously a difference of evidence, is that the Department has responded to the need. As the Deputy rightly says, this is the largest school in the country. The Department has built a new school. That school is to provide for 1,000 children. This is an area that is rapidly expanding. In order to anticipate the need, it built in facilities for 24 children in four ASD units. That is planning for an anticipated need.

It has not been presented to me that Gorey community school is seeking to expand its provision of ASD units. As I understood the matter, it has 12 children in an ASD unit and that is providing the appropriate service for them. That ASD unit was built some time ago, but there are new facilities and existing facilities. As the Deputy has said, there are children in one school whose needs are being met and there is quite a number of children with special needs. They will have resource teaching, SNAs and, where appropriate, ASD units as opposed to mainstream classes allocated to them as the NCSE identifies their needs.

On the advice of the NCSE, the Department has built an expanded facility to provide for the growth in the area and it is making provision for service. It is a bit simplistic to say that the Department is building in one location where there are no teachers and no students. It is a growing school and its enrolment has yet to reach its full level, but naturally, as a rapidly growing area, we would be expected to make provision to expand where needed. The net question that the Deputy is raising - and on which I will seek advice from the NCSE - is whether it is the case that the children in the community school are not being adequately catered for in the ASD units which I understood were there. That is a question that will need to be assessed by appropriate people on the basis of the evidence.

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