Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On Friday, the Department of Education informed us that St. Kevin's school in Finglas West was approved for a new ASD class. This brings to 20 the total number of ASD classes opened in my area in the past four years. There is a real challenge here in that for the last nine months, parents will have applied to all 20 of those schools to try to secure a place. They will have spent nine months doing that. While that is a timeline that works for mainstream students, although there are those who argue it does not work for mainstream students , it does not work for ASD students. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is not an advisory service. It should be a placement service and while we have extra staff we need to focus on providing places to parents earlier and with more certainty. We need to plan for second level too because the ASD classes are not coming on stream quickly enough for the demographic bulge that is inevitable.

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