Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy very much for the question. The National Council for Special Education is the statutory agency with responsibility for the provision of special education places. The National Council for Special Education has sanctioned 407 new special classes for the coming year, bringing the total number of special classes in our schools to 3,742. Combined with 300 new special school places, this brings to 2,700 the number of new school places for children with special educational needs. This additional capacity, together with the movement of children across existing classes, means that the Department and the 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 of Dublin, all children known to them by the February deadline who required a special class placement at primary and post-primary level had received places. With regard to a small number of children in the Dublin area who are seeking a special class or special school placement, the NCSE is working intensively with the parents and schools concerned to finalise arrangements for the 2025-26 school year. In addition, the NCSE is working closely with parents who came forward post the February deadline to support their children into available placements.

Notwithstanding this positive work, the Deputy will be aware of the ongoing challenges in securing sufficient special class places in the Dublin area. Legislation compelling schools to open special classes where they had capacity to do so was introduced in 2018 and has been used in the Dublin area. Since then, the legislation has been streamlined to allow for shorter timeframes in which to compel schools to open the required classes and this has been a factor in the NCSE’s ability to secure agreement from schools to co-operate when asked to open special classes.

For the 2024-25 school year, the NCSE prioritised opening classes in medium or larger primary schools that had not yet opened a class. I will refer to the specific school the Deputy mentioned in my supplementary reply, if that is okay.

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