Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is looking like the schools might reopen in some fashion on 1 March, maybe for junior infants, senior infants and up to second class, and leaving certificate and fifth-year students. There are positive signs from the Cabinet subcommittee but nothing has been set in stone. The reopening of schools is the single most important action that we can take for students' physical movement, education and socialisation, and it will be a huge relief for a lot of parents. I am at a loss at how the same collective empathy and efforts were not there for pupils of special education. Everyone should have rowed in behind the Minister with responsibility for special education to get pupils back to school as has been done in the North and in most of the countries in western Europe. Half of all primary school children could be back at school on Monday week but ten days before that we only have 50% attendance at special schools. Special classes are due to open on Monday but many parents have not received a communication from the schools about those arrangements and there is a lot of anxiety out there. Last night, Fórsa issued a statement about a work to rule in terms of special needs assistants and caused a lot of anxiety this morning concerning the purpose of that statement. There are a lot of worried parents and I feel that the language around this has been all wrong. Where is our collective will for such a vulnerable group?

I wish to mention another issue. Consideration must be given to exempting the strict two-year rule for early childhood care and education, ECCE. I ask because pupils who have special needs, and may have had their assessment of needs as part of ECCE, have had a very disrupted two years. Some of their parents, teachers and principals of the preschools feel that these pupils should remain in ECCE for another year. They have been told that they cannot and there needs to be some reflection on that.