Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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421. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will support the effort of a primary school in County Clare (details supplied) to develop a school playground for the specific benefit of children in its two new autism classes; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7659/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that my Department has no current record of receiving an application for additional accommodation from the school in question.

The purpose of the ASA scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream classroom and Special Education Needs (SEN) accommodation is available to cater for pupils enrolled each year, where the need cannot be met by the school’s existing accommodation or at other schools in the area.

At primary level, this situation generally arises to cater for a school’s accommodation requirements where an additional teaching post has been sanctioned by Teacher Allocation Section, or a new SEN class has been sanctioned by the National Council Special Education, and all available alternative accommodation within the school is already being used for classroom purposes.

The provision of education for children with special needs is an ongoing priority for government. The numbers of special classes, special education teachers and special needs assistants (SNAs) are at unprecedented levels.

In 2025, the department will spend over €2.9 billion on special education. Over a quarter of the entire education budget has been dedicated to special education in recent years.

The main supports this funding provides for are new special places, special education teachers and SNA posts.

Over 3,330 special classes have been sanctioned by the NCSE. 408 of these are new for the current school year – 289 at primary and 119 at post-primary level. Of the 124 special schools nationwide, four special schools are new for this school year and further capacity has been expanded in eleven others. Five more have been established for the 2025/26 school year in counties Cork, Dublin (2), Monaghan and Tipperary. This will bring to 16 the number of new special schools opened in recent years.

In addition, Budget 2025 provides for a dedicated special education innovation fund in recognition of the need to continually evolve and examine best practice to support children with special educational needs has received funding. Funding has also been secured for targeted measures to help children with special educational needs with planning and transitioning to and from the various level of our education system. In addition, it has also been provided for supporting teachers and SNAs in their enhanced training requirements.

The largest investment in the Summer Programme has also been secured. This €62 million investment will allow the department to continue to prioritise the most vulnerable children in our society, those with the most complex special educational needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to access the additional support that they need during the summer.

In County Clare alone, in the period 2020 – 2024, the department has invested €117.74 million on projects in construction, projects in the pipeline and on completions. There were 22 projects completed in Clare in the period 2020 to 2024 and there are currently 8 projects in construction.

It is open to the school authority to make an application, to develop a school play space for the specific benefit of the children enrolled in the two Special Education classes through the 'Additional School Accommodation scheme (ASA)' which is available at www.gov.ie/education