Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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147. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with additional needs who have yet to secure appropriate places in primary and secondary schools in the next academic year; what plans there are to address this issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39352/25]

Michael 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.

The NCSE has advised that just under 3,300 valid notifications were received by mid-February via their new parent notify service. Some of these notifications were children already known to the NCSE however, many others were new. Also, while parents were asked to notify the NCSE by mid-February the NCSE received a number of further notifications after this date.

The NCSE has advised my Department that the vast majority of children seeking a special school or special class place have now been assigned a school place. The NCSE are working very closely with the remaining families to ensure that they are being kept updated as the remaining special class and special school places are being finalised by a small number of schools.

I want to reassure the Deputy that my department and the NCSE are committed to ensuring that sufficient special education placements will be available for children for this coming school year and future years.