Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy for using the time available to highlight a really important issue. Being married to a special education teacher, I hear about this quite regularly, as the Deputy can imagine. For anyone who thinks politicians are going on holidays in two weeks' time, I can assure them not only are we not but our school leaders and teachers certainly are not on holidays at the moment. This is perhaps the busiest and most stressful time, particularly for school principals, which Deputy Dolan alluded to in his intervention. Two weeks ago, I took a similar Topical Issue tabled by Deputy Malcolm Byrne.

The original part of this Topical Issue was on the need for national school places in Wicklow town and Rathnew. The point has been made that the Department uses data from a range of sources, including child benefit data, enrolments and information on new residential developments, to plan for school place needs. This is one of the key issues. It is one of the biggest opportunities we have as elected representatives. We are not a data sheet. We are on the ground. Every single one of us is either in the schools as a parent or guardian or just visiting to give talks. We engage with our school communities on so many different issues. It is our responsibility, as elected officials from all parties and none, to be those eyes and ears on the ground. When there are issues with delays of allocation of resources, particularly for pupils who need special education services, that gives us an even greater responsibility.

With regard to the issues the Deputy raised in her second intervention, I will bring them to the attention of the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan. On the provision of school places in Wicklow town and Rathnew, I know there is ongoing consultation. It has started. It is easy to say there are adequate places for a wide geographic area and that it comes down to choice, based either on ethos or family. Crucially, there could be a critical mass of numbers that perhaps is not being captured. This is a really worthy debate that impacts every constituency but particularly commuter belt constituencies like ours and like most of the Members in the Chamber.

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