Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

142. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures the Government is taking to tackle the inequalities between school children with extra educational needs or disabilities. [30281/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

This government is fully committed to supporting children with special educational needs to fulfil their full potential and the Programme for Government makes a number of commitments to deliver on this objective. The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has responsibility for coordinating and advising on the education provision for children with special educational needs.?

In 2025 over €2.9 billion will be spent supporting children with special educational needs. This figure builds on previous years and represents over a quarter of the education budget. It will provide for, amongst other things, 400 new special classes and 300 new special school places. It will also increase our special educational posts by 768 special education teacher and 1,600 special needs assistant (SNA) posts nationwide.

There have been a number of recent initiatives introduced by this government to better support children with special educational needs, for example the Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS) which sees 39 occupational and speech and language therapy posts embedded within the NCSE.?The service is designed to build the capacity of teachers (and other school personnel as relevant) to provide as effectively as possible for the needs of all students.?

Furthermore, my department is working with the Department of Health, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality and the HSE to develop and strengthen more coherent structures to enable children and young people to access therapeutic supports across both health and education.

As a result of this engagement the enhanced in-school therapy supports pilot commenced in September 2024?delivering in school?supports to sixteen special schools via the HSE’s Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs) and supported by the NCSE. The purpose of the programme is to provide the effective delivery of in-school therapy supports to children and supplement existing services being provided through CDNTs.

Another significant recent initiative of this government is the National Therapy Service. This new service which will be delivered by the NCSE building on it's work previously completed through the School Inclusion Model (SIM) Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS). It will ensure that children with the greatest level of need will receive the greatest level of support, through universal, targeted and individualised interventions provided by therapists in schools. Work is ongoing on the establishment of this service.

My department has also introduced new practices to support forward planning. They have requested that parents notify the NCSE by 1 October 2025, four months earlier than previously, to enable the NCSE gather key data required for forward planning. The earlier date will allow for earlier sanctioning of classes for the 2026/27 school year, and it is the aim of the NCSE to sanction the majority of new special for September 2026 by 31 December 2025.

My department has also requested schools to review their admission policies to ensure that they are in keeping with best practice and policy in the area in special education. By reviewing these policies it will ensure that children with special educational needs are not precluded from certain classes which they are entitled.

In addition, a number of pilots are in train designed to remove barriers and encourage inclusive practices, pilots such as the Towards Inclusion Pilot and the Nursing Programme Pilot are in operation in a number of schools throughout the country. As these pilots develop they will be built on and rolled out to more schools.

My department and the NCSE are committed to delivering an education system that is of the highest quality and where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential.