Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for being here tonight. It is great to have the relevant Minister of State to take the matter after a long debate so I appreciate his presence.

This is a matter that he will be familiar with as it relates to his former electoral area. Ballincollig was in Cork North-West so he will be aware of the issues there. I do not want to go through the history of it because it is a history six or seven years in the writing. The school authorities are quite happy and content to provide for an ASD class on its premises at Scoil Eoin in Ballincollig but unfortunately, due to restrictions on the site and the lack of adequate space, it was determined that a knock and rebuild was the only option to provide the space. They have had numerous meetings with the Department officials on site. Subsequently, the Department, in written replies to parliamentary questions to myself and other Deputies, found that the cost would be excessive and that the project proposed would not progress on that basis. This is going to and fro over some years.

The school authorities commissioned an engineer’s report. It was demonstrated that the part of the building they were going to demolish had a problem with subsidence, rewiring, reroofing, disability access and so on. The rationale they were trying to put forward was that the demolition job would have to be done anyway to provide for the ASD class so they should basically bite the bullet and get on with the project.

The Minister of State knows me a long time. I was a teacher 15 years. I have often been in the House excoriating schools boards of management for not providing opportunities for ASD classes for their students. What irks me about this case in Ballincollig is that the school is ready, willing and able to provide a class for its 20 or so students with an autism diagnosis.

Back in January, before the Minister of State and the Minister for Education, Deputy McEntee were appointed, I received an equally depressing answer from the Department which stated it was pleased to inform me that another school in the school planning area had been identified as having suitable capacity to accommodate special education classrooms required for the area and a proposed accommodation brief had been sent to that school. The reason I describe it as a bit depressing is ultimately the Department told the school’s board of management in that letter that it has identified an ASD class that can go to another school. Then the next question is what do we do with the 20 kids in Scoil Eoin? Are we telling them and their parents that they should transfer to this other school site? I am not sure what the Department was hinting at with that response but it was a bit disappointing. It is not good enough. I do not think that was the suggestion but if it was, that is not a good enough response from the Department. I would like to think the students' educational needs could be provided for on the site of their existing school.

Last week, I had a conversation with the Minister of State ahead of a meeting I had with the board of management and he agreed to meet the board of management with me, one to one. That is deeply appreciated and I hope that after that meeting we will some progress. I just ask that he be open-minded about how this ASD class is provided. I spent many years in here trying to urge school principals up and down the county of Cork to open these classes. Here we have a school that is ready, willing and able but unfortunately, due to the restrictions on site, cannot provide it at the moment. I ask that the Department re-engage and use a bit of imagination to help deliver the class.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the Deputy raising the issue. I will deal with the specific issues he has raised in respect of Scoil Eoin. I thank the Deputy for the question and for the opportunity to outline how the Department and the NCSE continue to support children with additional needs. I want to stress that enabling students with additional needs to receive an education appropriate to their needs is an ongoing priority for this Government, myself and the Department of Education. In 2025, the Department will spend more than €2.9 billion on special education, which is more than a quarter of the entire education budget.

This funding has greatly boosted the numbers of special classes, special education teachers and special needs assistants.

In relation to the school referred to by the Deputy, I can confirm that the Department received an application in 2021 under the additional school accommodation, ASA, scheme. The application was for funding for the provision of three special education classrooms.

The Department's school building technical team carried out an in-depth review of the school site in 2021. The review confirmed that the school and the site are at maximum capacity and that it would not be possible to provide the required accommodation on site unless a vast amount of existing accommodation was demolished and replaced with two-storey accommodation, as the Deputy outlined in his opening remarks.

At that time, considering all the relevant impediments to delivering the accommodation and the site constraints, the Department was not in a position to provide funding for the significant demolition of the school building. In light of this, officials in the Department contacted the NCSE to advise it of same and to establish the special classes in other schools in the area. Subsequently, funding was approved under the ASA scheme in June 2022 for the replacement of prefabs on site with one modular unit.

Specifically in relation to the Deputy's request, I understand he has been engaging with the school authorities on this for quite some time and that it is something the Deputy feels strongly about. I am led to believe that there was some further engagement in this regard but I am quite happy to engage, through the Deputy, with the school to see is there anything further that we can do in relation to this. I am not giving any commitments but I would certainly engage with the Deputy and the school authorities to see is there a way forward.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. At the outset, I should have congratulated the Minister of State on his appointment because he is a perfect appointment for this role. He has the passion for it, having led the disabilities committee for a number of years. I am happy that Deputy Moynihan is in the role because he is sincere in respect of the work and efforts he will make on behalf of the children of Scoil Eoin and their parents.

I go back to my previous point and will refer to the response to my previous parliamentary question. The Department responded to say it is too expensive to demolish and rebuild. As outlined by the school's own engineer, a part of the school will have to be demolished anyway. I walked its corridors and the subsidence there is quite visible. This school will have to be rebuilt, in some shape or form, in the coming years. It is inevitable, given the deterioration there. I plead with the Department's officials to come out on site again, have a sit-down with the school and its engineers, and come up with a solution.

As I said, there are approximately 20 children here who have an autism diagnosis. The Minister of State is aware that were those children to have to even consider moving to another setting to avail of an ASD class position in another school, it might prove very difficult for some of them. There are variants in terms of the needs of each student. I ask that common sense prevail. Heads can be knocked together.

As I said, for years before Ballincollig became a part of my area, I came in here and gave out about how Ballincollig, as a large urban centre, had a deficit in the number of ASD classes for an area with its population size. To be honest with the Minister of State, I said that they outsourced their problem to villages such as Farran, Ovens, Dripsey and Inniscarra over the years. There is an obvious requirement for additional ASD class provision in Ballincollig. I just hope, as I said, that common sense can prevail and that people can sit around the table.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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On a general comment, it is welcome overall on the part of the Department and the NCSE that large schools are engaging with the process on additional special classes. It is hugely important that this happens and that they engage.

On the point the Deputy made about the subsidence, has that information been fed back to the Department? If any technical or professional report they have drawn up on the subsidence on the site has been sent back to the Department, we can follow it up. If there is any information that the school has, we can follow it up. I will come back to the Deputy with a response on any other documentation that he may have or any information he has that he wishes to submit to the Department.