Written answers

Thursday, 17 July 2025

Department of Education and Skills

Special Educational Needs

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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97. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the actions she will take to ensure that every child has an appropriate school place with all necessary supports in their local area in September. [39845/25]

Photo of Michael MoynihanMichael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is the national agency with responsibility for the provision of special education places. This year the NCSE has sanctioned 407 new special classes for the coming school year bringing to 3,742 the number of special classes in our schools. There are new classes in every county in Ireland and with the number of special classes doubling in the last five years, this now means that there are more classes than ever ensuring greater numbers of children can access places in their local school. Furthermore, the number of special class places in our schools will exceed demand.

Combined with 300 new special school places this brings to 2,700 the number of new school places for children with special educational needs.

This year, the approach taken was to maximise the use of existing accommodation in schools to ensure new special classes could open as quickly as possible for the 2025/26 school year. The NCSE also prioritised schools which did not have an existing special class. ?This has ensured that 80% of the new classes sanctioned are in schools with available accommodation.

Where schools require modular accommodation for new special classes, these projects are being fast-tracked by my department to deliver this accommodation as early as possible. In a small number of instances where a delay in new special class accommodation is expected such as where new modular classrooms are being provided, contingency arrangements are being made with the relevant schools with the support of the NCSE.

The NCSE has advised me, that outside of Dublin, all children known to them by the February deadline, who required a special class placement at primary and post primary level have received a place.

For a small number of children in the Dublin area who are seeking a special class or special school placement, the NCSE is working intensively with those parents and the schools concerned to finalise the arrangements for the 2025/26 school year.

In addition, the NCSE are working closely with parents who came forward post the February deadline to support them into available placements.

An additional 768 teaching and 1,600 SNA post were provided in Budget 2025 to support schools in this endeavour and all schools have been notified of their allocations for these extra posts.

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