Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the concern that the Deputy is bringing to the floor. When we look at it, we have to look at primary and post-primary levels. We have seen a significant reduction in exemptions at primary level, yet at post-primary level there has been an increase, but it is an increase of about 3%. We need to look at that in the context of the fact that this is a new circular. In the first year of implementation there is always going to be greater uptake because there may well have been a backlog. We also need to look at the fact that in the post-primary sector in particular there are over 18,000 students collectively from Ukraine who are now in the system. At post-primary level specifically, 36,629 students have come into the education system from abroad in the past couple of years. During this period, the prevalence rate of autism has grown from 1.8% to over 3.2%. It is also worth nothing that there are now almost 9,000 pupils enrolled in special schools and a further almost 18,500 students enrolled in special classes. Since 2017-18, the percentage of post-primary students holding an exemption from the study of Irish has increased by roughly 3%.

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