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

There is clearly demand for the school and there is clearly an unmet demand if the school is not able to continue to grow or even to meet the basic needs of the children who are there.

I understand that Fermoy Educate Together National School has been given the go-ahead to open an autism class and that it has four children in the school at the moment who need access to that class but are simply not going to get it because of the lack of space that is there. This is not an isolated incident. The Minister’s office got an email this morning, which I know because I received it too, from a primary school in Lanesborough, County Longford. The email says that the school has been in contact with the Minister’s Department since last year about the need to adequately support its growing number of students. It mentions a lack of correspondence and that there has been no progress to date. It says that a year has passed without any advancement towards providing suitable accommodation and that the situation is simply unacceptable. Moreover, the demand for this school’s autism classes continue to rise. We are a State with €8.6 billion of a surplus. How is this being allowed to happen in 2024?

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