Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The battle for the right to an education for children with special educational needs has been a very long one. The €2 billion which has been provided now is very welcome. This is why it is very difficult to accept that there are still some children who are not getting their education. I am thinking in particular of a 13-year-old boy in Mayo, about whom I have written to the Minister of State. He should now be halfway through the first year at this stage but he has had no education. The school is saying that it does not have the capacity but the special educational needs organiser, SENO, is saying that the school does have the capacity and would have all of the resources the school would need for that. There are children who are still being caught in that gap. I am asking the Minister of State, in particular, if she would intervene. I am afraid that they might appeal to the Department but that will take months and months and, by that time, the child will have gone through almost all of the year without having had an education. I ask the Minister of State to look at that.

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