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

The work is ongoing with the NCSE and the Department. There has been intense engagement with schools throughout the country to ensure that no child with an additional need will be left without an appropriate placement in September. A huge amount of work is being done on that. There has been an intense focus on forward planning in recent years, particularly around a detailed review of statistical data to ensure we can forecast demand for special classes throughout the country. We are looking at existing school accommodation and capacity to see if they are sufficient, rather than having to add on to existing accommodation. We are looking at improved data-sharing arrangements, particularly around post-primary education as traditionally there has been a gap between the places available at primary level and post-primary level when children transition to post-primary and we find there are not sufficient places. There is a major focus on that issue.

The Department and the NCSE met post-primary management bodies last week to share a list of schools that could potentially open special classes in September 2023. The NCSE is now engaging with those schools. We have also written to all post-primary schools indicating that we will ask them to open special classes over the coming years. We will need to double the number of special classes available at post-primary level over the next three years. At present, we have 2,544 special classes, of which 1,802 are at primary level and about 742 are at post-primary level.

Therefore, we do need the same level at post primary as we have at primary. There is a lot of focus in relation to that. In the Deputy's constituency of Cavan-Monaghan, there are 86 special classes at present, 12 of which are new special classes that opened this year.

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