Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)

There are a couple of things there. We understand the challenges that are ahead of us in terms of post-primary education because of the information we have at primary level. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, and myself are acutely aware of it and are working extremely hard on it. One of the things we agreed very early on was to bring back the date from 1 February to 1 October to give better planning. I take the Deputy's point. We had some challenges in respect of primary school because the NCSE or the Department had not been notified of children with additional needs. We are going to plan that better.

On the Deputy's own county of Louth, I think we have facilitated everybody who was requiring a place in Louth this year. An awful lot of great work has been done by the NCSE, the Department and the SENOs, and of course the school communities. The Government has made a decision and a memo was taken to the Government this week in respect of therapies within the schools. That is an ongoing discussion which has taken place over the last while at the Cabinet subcommittee on disability. They will be rolled out to the special schools this year. We have a lot of work done on that and an awful lot more that we will be doing over the next while.

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