Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I, too, rise in support of this motion. It has become an annual issue and we have already started hearing from parents in respect of next September. There was a particular issue last year, in south County Roscommon, in my constituency, with 18 children and 18 sets of parents run ragged trying to ring around schools and ask for a place, an education that meets their child's needs. It is a horrible and extremely stressful situation to put parents in, and it infects their entire families. A child with additional needs, no matter what those needs are, should be able to access an education in a local school. They should not have to travel long distances or be split up from their brothers and sisters who are attending the local school.

We also hear annually from school principals. Last year, a school in my constituency was requested by the NCSE to open a special class. It was happy to do so and had 24 children seeking a place in a rural school. It applied to the Department in plenty of time for additional accommodation to make this happen and to make sure it could meet the needs of those children in their community. It was told by the Department of Education to use its GP room. For young people and children, it is hard enough to start off at school - as it was for any of us - without shoving children into the GP room and setting up a class. Can the Minister imagine how different that makes a young person or child feel going into a school, where they are told to just use the GP room and a kind of makeshift classroom? It is hard enough to go in and have those additional needs when you are that young and that age, to then be made feel that you are different by the Department. That is an appalling way to treat any child. It is not appropriate or acceptable and it is not the way the Department should act. The Department of Education encourages schools to open special classes. We remember that it was naming schools that were not doing so. If the school is not supported to open the class in the first place, however, then that is not working either. It is not outside the remit of the Department to plan for and forecast these children's needs. We had a Bill seeking to provide that the NCSE and the Department would work together to forecast and plan for these children. It is not impossible.

Let us take a step back and look at this. In 2025, in one of the richest countries in the world, parents are put in a position whereby they have to ring around schools and lobby TDs and the Government to find a class place for their child to get them an education. In some cases, they are put under huge pressure to do that. It is not normal. It should not happen, and it is an issue we should be more than able to overcome. It is something that needs to be a priority now.

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