Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)

I take the point, but it is important that special schools, special classes and special places for children with additional needs are as local as possible to pupils' own communities. In various debates on special education, we constantly talk about people who are travelling long distances, be that in urban or rural Ireland, for those places. That is something we really are very serious about tackling.

On students with mild general learning disabilities, the experience over the past 20 years regarding mainstreaming is that a lot of it has been very successful. Yes, there are children whose needs will not be met in mainstream schools and we want to ensure we have that for them. We want real engagement with stakeholders because many of the schools throughout the country, as the Deputy has mentioned, are doing extraordinary work. We want to continue that but we want serious engagement as well. It is also important that we accommodate children as locally as possible to their own community.

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