Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for attending, but this shows how little interest the Minister for Education has in children with special needs. We are here to discuss Scoil Aonghusa in Cashel. It is a fantastic school of 150 students with complex special needs. In 2015, school management reached out to the Department concerning the capacity required to meet the growing population of children with special needs. The school purchased five acres like it was told to do to provide for the necessary expansion. Twelve modular classrooms were required at that point, but the Department, in its wisdom, stated that the school would get five precast classrooms. There has been a development in this regard, but I will revert to that later.

It is important to relate how the Department has treated the school and the children. It has been disgusting. Approval was given in March 2023, but the completion date was quickly thrown out to September, which was when the expansion would be needed. In its wisdom, the Department gave the school second-hand Portakabins costing €1.4 million from a school in Dublin and landed them in the middle of the school’s car park the week school was returning. We all know the disruption that can be caused when that happens.

The Department has been down in Cashel to discuss plans for the expansion it promised. The school and we want to know the commencement date and to be given a guarantee that it will happen. The more this drags on, the more it upsets everyone. The school has used the GP hall, a sensory room, the canteen and a hallway as classrooms because of heel dragging by the Department and, especially, the Minister over the past number of years. That needs to stop and the school needs clarity before we leave the Chamber today.

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