Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

In relation to the curriculum, a number of subjects saw a slight reduction in the time allocated to them but there is more flexibility within the time schedules, so schools can increase the number of hours provided for Irish or the time spent on Irish.

The overall figure for exemptions at primary school level is extremely low. It fell from over 18,000 maybe five years ago to just over 12,000 in the 2024-25 school year. The proportion of primary students with an exemption in the same period dropped from about 3.25% to 2.2%. Of exemptions at primary level, 93% are granted to students with special education needs.

I accept the number of exemptions at post primary level has increased, but we are seeing that exemptions have steadied. Even though the number of students attending post primary has increased by 4.7%, we have not seen a relative increase in the number of exemptions. It is about half and half, so it is evenly distributed between the number of students with special education needs getting exemptions and the number coming from abroad. That is generally the breakdown we are seeing.

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