Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hear exactly what the Deputy is saying and I hear from across the country that parents feel anxious and frustrated. What we are doing, and what I am doing in my role as Minister of State with responsibility for special education, is increasing the number of SENOs on the ground, whose role it will be to be visible and active, and engaging and working with parents and schools to help them to find places for these children. I do not want us to be in the situation in September 2025 that we are in now, where parents are unnecessarily anxious and frustrated about finding places for their children for the upcoming September. We had 73 SENOs and they were spread very thinly across the country and each covered a very large geographical area. They will now have just one county that they work from and there will be 120 of them. They are being upskilled and trained and much of the administrative burden, such as filling out forms and applications, will be taken from them. This means they can be on the ground, helping parents and helping schools in forward planning for places.

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