Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I addressed this earlier. I make the point that as a percentage of the overall population, the number of children with special and additional needs is increasing fairly significantly. For example, in 2018, about 42,000 children benefited from domiciliary care allowance. That has risen to 64,500 in a short number of years. We need to provide additional spaces in this regard. Officials from the Department of Education are visiting St. John's today, as are officials from the National Council for Special Education. There has been investment at the school, with a three-classroom extension completed last year. The issue will be to provide for those on the waiting list that is now there. I understand that some of them are from east Cork and other geographical locations nearby. We need to make sure that we provide places for those who have not been allocated places in St. John's and whatever else we can do to help St. John's to deal with the increase in numbers.

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