Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On that point, when I meet families, as I am sure the Minister has done, whose child has completed primary education and has nowhere to go for post-primary education, the challenge has to be addressed in large part within the mainstream schools but also within special schools. The National Council for Special Education has been doing great work in looking at where in the country the special schools have to be in place but I would ask the Minister, in collaboration with the Minister for Education and the Minister of State, who I appreciate have been fully briefed, to push insofar as possible to ensure the reports on where the schools should be developed will be submitted and that the schools will be developed in the shortest space of time. The difficulty we have with delivering a lot of the projects in the national development plan relates to going through the statutory processes for planning and so on, and people get very frustrated with that. I appeal to the Minister to keep the negotiations going, as he outlined he will do, and to keep funding available for the education of kids with additional needs because there is a chronic unmet need within the community.

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