Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

The NCSE is the national agency with responsibility for the provision of special education places. This year, the NCSE has sanctioned 407 new special classes for the coming school year, bringing to 3,742 the number of special classes in our schools. There are new classes in every county in Ireland and, with the number of special classes doubling in the last five years, this now means that there are more classes than ever ensuring greater numbers of children can access places, most importantly, in their local schools. Combined with 300 new special school places, this brings to 2,700 the number of new school places for children with special educational needs.

The additional capacity, together with the movement of children across existing classes, means that my Department and NCSE have created more capacity than required for the children known to the NCSE by the deadline of February 2025. The NCSE has advised me that outside Dublin all children known to it by the February deadline, who require a special class placement at primary and post-primary level have received a place. The NCSE is working intensively with the parents of a small number of children in the Dublin area who are seeking a special class or special school placement, and with the schools concerned to finalise the arrangements for the 2025-2026 school year.

In addition, the NCSE is working closely with parents who came forward after the February deadline to support them into available class placements. It will always be the case, no matter what deadline is put in place, that there will be children who do not meet it. We are therefore working actively to make sure those children have a place identified for them.

Asking parents to engage early with the NCSE when seeking a special placement has enhanced the NCSE’s capacity to plan and make timely provision in local areas. Therefore, for the 2026-2027 school year we are asking families to engage by 1 October 2025 - four months earlier than this year - to support this planning further and allow the NCSE to sanction classes much quicker. The NCSE will be actively communicating this requirement nationally.

An additional 768 teaching and 1,600 SNA posts were provided in budget 2025 to support schools in this endeavour and all schools have been notified of their allocations for the coming school year.

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