Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. This is not just about navigating the system so that we do not have parents such as Sarah Dooley, about whom I have spoken to the Minister previously. She applied to 20 schools before her little boys were offered a place. This will mean a 90-minute round trip for those children to get to school in September. This is not inclusivity. They are literally excluded from their own community. The Department produced a document on projected enrolment which was recently updated. It specifically emphasised the estimate of enrolments of children with special educational needs as a percentage of total enrolments. It outlines that in 2023, to be confirmed, the figure for primary and post-primary is that 2.65% of children have special educational needs. This is estimated to increase to 4% by 2030. Specifically, one of the documents states the number of those who qualified under M1F2 in 2022 was 23,096 and that figure is expected to increase to 36,900 by 2030. What does the Minister plan to change on the figures she uses for assessment to ensure these 37,000 children will have a school place in 2030?

See this speech in context