Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A huge amount of work is being done on securing specialist places, be it in special classes or special schools. We are far ahead of where we were this time last year. We had a budget for 400 special classes. I got increased funding in March of this year. We are ahead in relation to forward planning. There are now 584 special classes allocated. This is far more than any previous years because of the parent notify system, on 1 October. I brought that forward again this year. This enabled the Department to forward plan even better for when I go into budget negotiations for September 2027. A huge amount of work is happening with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and me. There is sufficient overall capacity to meet identified demand. There is a pathway for children to receive a specialist place or supports within mainstream settings. As I have said, about 25% or approximately 240,000 children and young people have special educational needs and the majority of them are supported in mainstream settings but the focus and priority will be on children who do not have a place and are coming into the primary school system or moving from primary to post-primary, for example.

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