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

I will come back on the situation on the CDNTs. That recruitment continues.

On education, it should be acknowledged that there has been a huge increase in public expenditure, and rightly so, on special education. It now constitutes 25% of the overall education budget, or about €3 billion now. Money, however, does not mean a whole lot to people if they are waiting for school places. We have some 23,000 special needs assistants now in our schools. We have 20,800 special education teachers. The number of special classes has doubled in the last five years to 3,336, serving 20,000 students, and 11 new special schools have been established, with five more planned for this school year 2025-26. With regard to the September deadline, the Minister for Education is clear that we want to ensure all children get a place by September. Working with the NCSE, we will focus very strongly on that.

On the education side, there has been significant progress over the last number of years. We just have to make sure that the system is almost automatic in that children or their parents should not have to be under pressure in trying to secure a place for their child.

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