Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Legislation will be brought forward to shorten the legislation that was previously introduced in the House some years ago in respect of giving directions to schools to accept children with special needs. We want to move quickly so that we can deal with an outstanding number of cases where children do not have access to school places next September. More fundamentally, I want to see a legislative framework that has inclusion as a core principle, that all schools have to accept, within reason, children with special needs. Resources will be provided. We know that certain schools at post-primary level have taken on the heavy load in recent years. Some schools have taken children in but some have not and that is not acceptable. I know Deputy O'Sullivan has been advocating for this for quite a while. We had a cross-government meeting, to which I invited both Ministers with responsibility for education, the Minister for Health and all the agencies, to deal once and for all with a whole range of issues pertaining to special needs children. This is one of those issues that is very important to fulfil a constitutional entitlement to education for children with special needs.

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