Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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2. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to a recent report (details supplied) from the Ombudsman for Children that states that children with special education needs are not getting their right to education without discrimination and that this is putting an unacceptable level of stress and pressure on families and their children; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34919/22]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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The Ombudsman for Children found that the State is failing children with special needs, which means the Government is failing children with special needs. It is particularly failing those children who do not have an appropriate place for September when it is now the end of June. The original response from Government to that failure was the awful scheme for special education centres, which has thankfully been dropped. There has now been an attempt to distract from the Government's failings by putting the blame on four particular schools, which were at wrongly named.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I spoke already about the Ombudsman for Children's report. I very much welcome the fact that he has now published his report. The Department had a significant level of engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman for Children to make sure he had the full facts in order that he could reflect that in his recommendations. It is important to point out that while the State may have failed in its obligations over many decades, the Ombudsman for Children acknowledged the progress that has been made by this Government in the last two years. It is important to say that.

He acknowledged the investment of €2 billion, which is over 25% of the Department's budget, on special education. That amount is the same as the entire amount for the Department of Justice and is a recognition and acknowledgement of the importance of special education.

Yesterday, we published new emergency legislation which will assist in the section 37A process. We have outlined a number of different measures over the last two years. The Department's geographical information system will continue to support a strategic and co-ordinated approach to the planning and delivery of special educational needs, SEN, provision, which is the main point the Ombudsman for Children was making in terms of forward planning. That forward planning probably was not up to standard in the sense that we were in a difficulty in trying to find appropriate placements for a small but important minority for this September. I expect the emergency legislation will assist with that.

The Ombudsman for Children also made some points about National Council for Special Education, NCSE, training. Those targeted and bespoke supports will continue as well. Last year, for the first time, we secured a commitment from the planning and building unit that all new schools in the future will automatically provide a SEN base, which is four classrooms in a post-primary school of 1,000 pupils and pro rataafter that.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Will the Minister of State apologise to the four DEIS - Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools - schools that she named? She said that the decision to name the schools had been made because they were "not engaging at all" with the Department and were "just ignoring correspondence". When the schools produced correspondence to prove that was not the case, the Minister of State's story changed. She said they were ignoring the import of the correspondence, a very different story from what she had made public. Will she apologise for naming these schools in the way she did? Will she apologise for using the four schools as a scapegoat for the failure of the Government to deal with the situation and to prioritise children with special needs? Will she commit to providing not only the places in the schools but also the resources, particularly staffing, to enable schools to provide the necessary education to children with additional or special needs?

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I note that this was not part of the Deputy's question. Nonetheless, I have no difficulty in responding to it. First, all supports and resources will be given to all schools that we are requesting under the section 37A process to open a special class. It is important to point out that in the section 37A process, which is a transparent process, all schools are publicly named on the Department's website. That is the nature of it. It has already been used twice in the past. Recently, we initiated the process for the third time when the National Council for Special Education wrote to inform me that there were insufficient placements for children in Dublin. The council is satisfied that every other placement around the country will be provided for. Therefore, we felt there was no other option in circumstances where schools that we had targeted informed us that they were not going to be in a position to open a special class.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I will ask again. Will the Minister of State apologise to the four schools? She attempted to name and shame them to distract from her and the Department's failures. She put wrong information into the public domain by saying that they were not engaging at all and "just ignoring correspondence" when it has been proven that this is not the case. Will she apologise to the principals, teachers and the schools? Then we can put this distraction behind us and move on in dealing with this crisis. In Dublin 24, for example, there are 17 primary schools with special education classes but in September there will be only two post-primary schools with them. In general, the ratio is two point something to one, but in Dublin 24 it is substantially worse. It is a real failure. It is good that we are dealing with the legislation on Friday, but why did the Department wait until the Dáil is about to go on holidays and it is a few months from September? Why has the Government not been proactively planning for this, which is both directing schools and providing the resources for the schools to do it?

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Again, it is important to point out that the majority of special classes that are opened in Ireland are opened without having recourse to the section 37A process. The section 37A process has to be utilised and the mechanism has to be triggered in circumstances where the National Council for Special Education and the Department are of the firm view that a school has spare capacity to open a special class. If it transpires that a school is compelled to open a special class, it will be fully resourced and the staff will be given to the school. It is important to point out that there are 435 special classes in the county in which the Deputy lives, 310 at primary level and 125 at post-primary level. There are also 38 special schools. The majority of those special classes would have been opened outside the section 37A process. The Government wants schools to volunteer in the first instance, but where they do not volunteer and where we know they are in a position to open a special class or, indeed, a second special class, we will trigger the section 37A process.