Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Leader has heard from a number of Members about special schools and the summer programme. Roughly €40 million has been allocated to the programme. I asked about it and principals came to me with some feedback. One in four schools rolled the programme out last year but we need more of our mainstream schools doing so as well because we are looking to bring children with special needs into our mainstream schools and for our special schools to handle children with more severe to complex, challenging needs. It needs to be made clear that, for our special schools, there are more challenging behaviours and that getting new teachers to come in to do the summer programme can be a challenge. Some of the special schools have looked to see about central vetting processes for SNAs. This is not about the schools themselves having to go to Garda stations and so on. Perhaps there should be panels for teachers, particularly for special schools, because additional training may be required as opposed to special classes within mainstream schools. Those are just some issues for the Minister, who might come in to speak to us, to take into consideration.

I wish to raise two other matters. We know about all the families and people living around Rahara and Ballagh, that is, around Lough Funshinagh. There are the rising flood levels of the turlough. Senator Murphy has raised this on a number of occasions. I welcome the group appearing today before the agriculture committee. Public representatives, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, and OPW officials met with the Lough Funshinagh group in July. Further progress updates on the plans we need to put in place will take place in October. This is a difficult situation because environmental assessments are required. The matter has gone down the legal route. There have been High Court actions.

Finally, regarding West on Track, and to follow up on Senator Burke's contribution, I attended the meeting in Tuam to which he referred. This is about how we develop that region and about investment coming into Galway and the west. The Western Development Commission, the Northern and Western Regional Assembly, NWRA, and the Committee of the Regions attended the meeting. We need to be conscious that we can provide regional cycleways while also developing our train tracks and bringing investment and tourism into the west.