Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)

I know the Minister of State is aware of the issue in St. Mochta’s National School and the two special classes. First and foremost, we should express our concern for the parents and children involved in this situation.

St. Mochta’s agreed to open up two classes after long discussions and much dialogue with the NCSE - one in temporary accommodation in the library and the other in December when two modular classes were to be delivered. The principal then informed the parents they needed to make the NCSE aware of their children, which all parents did. They were issued letters of eligibility by the NCSE. In fact, one parent had already done so around October 2024. The principal and patron were told they would be exempt from the 19 February deadline that was imposed with regard to special classes for 2025. Unfortunately, they got an email last Friday afternoon, the last day of school, from the NCSE saying that 11 of those 12 places have been allocated, but not one of those allocations had been given to those six students who are in St. Mochta’s school, including that one child who had a letter from October 2024. We have 17 to 18 parents who are deeply worried about how this is going. We need clarification from the NCSE as to how it will resolve this for all of those parents. Every child, as we have always said, deserves a place.

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