Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This week 320,000 students returned to their classrooms for the first time since before Christmas. In our current circumstances, facilitating the safe return of so many pupils and staff has been a mammoth task. Yet, now that we have got to this point, our priority needs to be fully reopening our schools. It is crucial we never return to remote schooling as we have had to do.

Parents needs clarity. Parents have undertaken Trojan work and become master jugglers during the crisis that is this pandemic. They have not only been facilitating home school but have become emergency educators as well. Often they are double jobbing or triple jobbing.

The mood of the country has been low. For many people the reopening of schools this week has brought hope. Another thing that has lifted people's spirits this week is the prospect of the World Cup being staged in Ireland. I call on the Government to give serious consideration to backing the bid to give people, young and old, something to dream about in the months ahead.

In January we told students with special educational needs that their return to education would be prioritised. While we prioritised the return of special schools, the reality is that a young person with special educational needs between the ages of ten and 16 years attending a mainstream school is likely still to be waiting to get back in the classroom. That is simply not good enough.

We all accept this pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on children with special educational needs. Caregivers have no doubt done their best to help their children to keep progressing, but many parents are now confronted by their worst nightmare, which is their child falling behind. Last weekend, the chief executive of Ireland's autism charity, AsIAm, spoke out on this issue. He said the Department of Education had turned its back on these children at this last hurdle. We cannot make children with additional needs in mainstream schools wait any longer.

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These students need to be prioritised and they need to be back where they belong, receiving the education they deserve. We need to get them over this final hurdle.

I take this opportunity to remind the Minister about the school building crisis in my constituency of Dublin Mid-West. There is a need for new school buildings for second level schools in Lucan, Rathcoole and Clondalkin and new primary school buildings right across my constituency. I look forward to working with the Minister to resolve this issue and delivering new school buildings to children in my area.

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