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

I thank the Deputy for her question. It is of huge importance to me, as Minister of State with responsibility for special education. I concur with what the Deputy says by virtue of the fact that all children, particularly children with additional needs, should have an appropriate placement, whether in a mainstream class, in a special class or, indeed, in a special school.

Ninety-eight per cent of children with special educational needs attend mainstream settings, which is good. However, there are obviously children with more complex needs who need more appropriate provision, whether in a special class or in a special school.

Over the last number of years, we have brought in a number of different initiatives to make sure no child with an additional need is left without an appropriate placement. As the Deputy will know, we have a budget of €2.6 billion. That is 27% of the entire education budget and a 10% increase on last year. That provides funding for SEN in mainstream, for special classes, special school places and for special education teachers. We had funding for over 600 such teachers in the budget and 1,194 SNAs. Over the last three years we have sanctioned 600 special class places at primary level and 300 special class places at post-primary level. Within the next few months we will have opened seven special schools in the last three years. That will demonstrate to the Deputy the progress we have made since this role as Minister of State for special education was created. The Minister for Education and I announced on 12 April that two new special schools will be opened, one in Carrigtwohill in east Cork and the other in Dublin 7. There will also be further capacity in 11 other special schools nationwide.

That is a brief overview of the figures, data and statistics. However, it is also important that we put our focus on forward planning into the future so we never have a situation where a child is left without an appropriate placement. We managed to do that last year and we will also do it this year.

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