I know the Minister of State is aware of the issue in St. Mochta’s National School and the two special classes. First and foremost, we should express our concern for the parents and children involved in this situation. St. Mochta’s agreed to open up two classes after long discussions and much dialogue with the NCSE - one in temporary accommodation in the library and the other in December when two modular classes were to be delivered. The principal then informed the parents they needed to make the NCSE aware of their children, which all parents did. They were issued letters of eligibility by the NCSE. In fact, one parent had already done so around October 2024. The principal and patron were told they would be exempt from the 19 February deadline that was imposed with regard to special classes for 2025. Unfortunately, they got an email last Friday afternoon, the last day of school, from the NCSE saying that 11 of those 12 places have been allocated, but not one of those allocations had been given to those six students who are in St. Mochta’s school, including that one child who had a letter from October 2024. We have 17 to 18 parents who are deeply worried about how this is going. We need clarification from the NCSE as to how it will resolve this for all of those parents. Every child, as we have always said, deserves a place.

Sentiment score: 0.09

The last paragraph is slightly worrying because in the presentation that was given to us on Monday evening by the principal and the patron of the school, it was stated that the SENO gave a verbal commitment to the school that the deadline of 19 February would be waived for pupils in St. Mochta’s as classes were not sanctioned on this date. The principal met with all parents on 5 March 2025 to advise the parents of the next steps and share commitments from the SENO to waive the deadline of 19 February. All parents contacted the SENO and received eligibility letters from the SENO on dates ranging from 14 March to 7 April 2025, and all parents had a legitimate expectation that they would be offered a place. We are unsure about where the truth lies. There are two different versions of what is going on and that needs to be resolved.

Sentiment score: 0.07