Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, who is regrettably unavailable.

I thank Senator McGahon for raising that matter as it provides the Minister with the opportunity to outline the current position regarding the accommodation needs of Monksland National School in Carlingford, County Louth, and the Government's firm commitment to enabling students with additional needs to receive an education appropriate to those needs.

As the Senator will be aware, Monksland National School is a co-educational national school that caters for pupils from junior infants to sixth class. The school had an enrolment of 132 pupils in the year 2021-22, with a mainstream staffing complement of a principal plus four mainstream teachers for the current academic year.In addition, the school has two special education support teaching posts.

This year, the Department of Education will invest in excess of €2 billion, or more than 25% of the Department's budget, in the area of special educational needs support. As a result, the number of special education teachers, special needs assistants and special classes and places are at unprecedented levels.

In this academic year, there are 2,148 special classes in schools across the country. Of these, almost 1,900 special classes cater for students with autism. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, has responsibility for co-ordinating and advising on the education provision for children with special educational needs nationwide. A range of strategic initiatives has been put in place with the NCSE in recent years to support and expand special educational needs provision in schools throughout the country. These initiatives include enhanced arrangements for the planning and co-ordination of SEN provision requirements involving the Department, the NCSE and key stakeholders such as patrons and management bodies.

Our planning utilises the Department of Education's geographic information management system, GIS, to support a strategic and co-ordinated approach to the delivery of SEN provision. This includes real-time data on capacity across the school system. This has resulted in a more streamlined and joined-up planning process, which has ensured a targeted approach to meeting demand for special education placements ahead of each new school year. The Department of Education is satisfied that this approach is delivering. This intensive intervention has seen more than 300 special classes already opened nationwide for the 2021-22 school year, as well as the establishment of two new special schools in Cork and Dublin last September. This targeted approach will continue to identify and meet demand for special education placements throughout the country.

The NCSE, through its network of SENOs, special educational needs organisers, is currently engaging in a process of establishing two new ASD classes in Monksland National School for the 2022-23 school year. Two ASD special classes were sanctioned by the NCSE on 9 February 2022 to meet expected demand in the area. When the NCSE sanctions a special class in a school - primary or post-primary - it is open to the school authority to apply to the Department for capital funding to reconfigure any existing spaces within the school building to accommodate the class or to construct additional accommodation under the Department's additional school accommodation scheme, ASA. ASA application forms are available on the Department's website, www.education.ie.