Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this. We debated a lot of these points already on radio. I did not get the opportunity to mention the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. I did mention the extra €30 million in funding that we secured for it in the budget, but the reason it is pertinent to this question is that the council will now be in a position to hire new special educational needs organisers, SENOs. One of the things that strikes me when travelling around meeting school staff and principals is that they have had difficulty on some occasions over communication with SENOs. They comprise a critical link between families and schools. We need more SENOs. The NCSE is going to be in a position to hire an extra 160 staff. It is in the process of recruiting them. They will really help in the shorter and longer term in mitigating the problem of the last-minute rush that the Deputy correctly stated occurred in the past, whereby there was a scramble to obtain an appropriate placement, be it in a special school or special class. I wished to reiterate that because it very much reflects what is happening on the ground from an operational perspective.

John Kearney, the new CEO of the NCSE, is doing an awful lot to make sure those lines of communication are kept open. In fairness to SENOs, there was only one SENO for every 55 schools in the past. That is a huge caseload and, with the best will in the world, it has been very difficult for them to have to constantly update families as to the status of the process. I hope that will make a significant difference and ameliorate the situation.

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