Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)

I have the written part of the Minister of State's statement and some of that is useful as well. I am glad he is here today because I appreciate that he is up to date on the issues. It is important that the Department takes this seriously. The NCSE and the Department are taking it seriously but, clearly, we need solutions. While the potential reduced hours did not proceed in St. Gabriel's Special School, there is still an issue. To the best of my knowledge, no additional staff have been allocated since the issue arose on Thursday. Could the Minister give me an update of what is planned over the next couple of weeks to address the issues in terms of the staffing?

It is good to hear that there is a discussion happening between the Department and the ETBs. It is also important that parents are a part of that too, in relation to the issues in Carrigaline Community Special School. In many instances, because it is the State's patron effectively, the ETB is very often not in a position to say, "Yes", "No" or whatever. If it is asked to open a special school, it opens a special school and that is the way it is. It is right that it does so but it needs to get the support it ought to get. The lack of access to respite is very hard to comprehend. Parents who have enrolled a child in a special school would have assumed, just because the patron was the patron, that these schools would have the same terms, conditions and supports that any special school would have, and it is right that they should have. That needs to happen.

Returning to the issue I submitted, clearly there is an issue in ensuring that we recruit and retain special needs assistants, SNAs. Some of this pertains to the terms and conditions that apply but it seems that there is an issue in relation to teachers in special schools because maybe there are opportunities available in some other schools outside the special education sector. It can be difficult to hold onto them but ultimately that is having a knock-on effect on the children and their continuity of education.

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