Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I get the parliamentary questions replies all the time. I send them out to the parents who have children waiting for places and they tell me they are sick to the teeth of the replies. I am embarrassed to send them. They call them copy-and-paste replies. The school place action committee in Clane is a force to be reckoned with. It tells me that it sees through this, how there is nothing the Department cannot or will not do until it comes to actually doing it. It just takes so long and children grow up so fast.

On the general places, we hear all the time that the Minister is assuring parents that their child will have a school place. There is a special concentration on County Kildare at the moment. We were lucky to have a meeting with officials regarding the Department's school buildings programme but there is a serious need for more places in County Kildare. Therefore, however many are provided, we need more, because assurance of a place is not action to deliver that, when they have seen that certain children have been let down. Autistic children in particular are in a precarious position. Parents have to campaign for places in so-called mainstream school. Extreme ability is required of the parents of autistic children who are already hanging on by a thread waiting for everything. If the Minister of State met these parents, he would see the worry etched on their faces and hear the disbelief in their voices. I am in favour of collaborative politics and four north Kildare Deputies are working hard on the issue in Castletown. I am prepared to do that as well for the modular classroom in Scoil Mhuire and all school places. Generally, I am very happy to work with them but childhood is a tiny space; it goes by so quickly. Parents and grandparents talk to me about their worries that their child is not going to get the special place needed. Will the Minister of State please sort out the classroom for these children?

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