I appreciate the Deputy raising the issue. I will deal with the specific issues he has raised in respect of Scoil Eoin. I thank the Deputy for the question and for the opportunity to outline how the Department and the NCSE continue to support children with additional needs. I want to stress that enabling students with additional needs to receive an education appropriate to their needs is an ongoing priority for this Government, myself and the Department of Education. In 2025, the Department will spend more than €2.9 billion on special education, which is more than a quarter of the entire education budget. This funding has greatly boosted the numbers of special classes, special education teachers and special needs assistants. In relation to the school referred to by the Deputy, I can confirm that the Department received an application in 2021 under the additional school accommodation, ASA, scheme. The application was for funding for the provision of three special education classrooms. The Department's school building technical team carried out an in-depth review of the school site in 2021. The review confirmed that the school and the site are at maximum capacity and that it would not be possible to provide the required accommodation on site unless a vast amount of existing accommodation was demolished and replaced with two-storey accommodation, as the Deputy outlined in his opening remarks. At that time, considering all the relevant impediments to delivering the accommodation and the site constraints, the Department was not in a position to provide funding for the significant demolition of the school building. In light of this, officials in the Department contacted the NCSE to advise it of same and to establish the special classes in other schools in the area. Subsequently, funding was approved under the ASA scheme in June 2022 for the replacement of prefabs on site with one modular unit. Specifically in relation to the Deputy's request, I understand he has been engaging with the school authorities on this for quite some time and that it is something the Deputy feels strongly about. I am led to believe that there was some further engagement in this regard but I am quite happy to engage, through the Deputy, with the school to see is there anything further that we can do in relation to this. I am not giving any commitments but I would certainly engage with the Deputy and the school authorities to see is there a way forward.

Sentiment score: 0.38

On a general comment, it is welcome overall on the part of the Department and the NCSE that large schools are engaging with the process on additional special classes. It is hugely important that this happens and that they engage. On the point the Deputy made about the subsidence, has that information been fed back to the Department? If any technical or professional report they have drawn up on the subsidence on the site has been sent back to the Department, we can follow it up. If there is any information that the school has, we can follow it up. I will come back to the Deputy with a response on any other documentation that he may have or any information he has that he wishes to submit to the Department.

Sentiment score: 0.25

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Over the past four and a half years, we sat on the disability matters committee. I know the passion the Deputy brings to the issue of special education in Louth. In many of the discussions we had at that committee, she brought forward the challenges that are there, not only at primary school but post-primary as well and, indeed, in preschool and the AIM programme. In one of the long debates that we had in the Joint Committee on Disability Matters, the Deputy raised the correlating of information from the AIM programme onward to ensure that the education system was better prepared. We are doing that in the Department. I thank the Deputy for her commitment to special education and for the work she did on that committee and in Seanad Éireann, as well as the work that she continues to do, in relation to special education. As the Deputy outlined in her contribution, a huge amount of money is being spent and 400 extra classes are being opened this year alone. We need to look at some communities - the Deputy mentioned County Louth - and we will be working hard. Extra SENOs have been put in place and more people have been working to this end. We are far ahead of where we were this day 12 months ago in relation to providing special education places for children with additional needs but it is not good enough. We simply need to do better at both primary and post-primary levels. We need the information from very early on to make sure the State is properly empowered to make sure there are no gaps within the education system. The Deputy mentioned post-primary education. It is one of the areas that we are having a particular difficulty with in some communities in respect of children who are leaving primary school but have nowhere to go come 1 September. As I mentioned in the previous debate, I met parents at school gates whose children were leaving primary school education in the last week of June and they did not know where they were taking up education the first week of September. I do not mind sharing with the House that as a public representative, I felt totally inadequate when meeting those parents on that day. In the role I have now, I will work as hard as I can to make sure that is not the plight of any parent or any children in my time in office. The Deputy mentioned County Louth. The Department of Education, the NCSE and all the officials will work to ensure that places are provided, both at primary school and at post-primary, in a timely manner and that families are not completely stressed out for six, seven or eight months not knowing what will happen. We need to respect the children who have additional needs and we need to respect the families, parents and communities by having this done in a timely manner. I will work with the Deputy regarding County Louth and specific schools, areas or even policies she would like to raise. I know she is passionate about this issue. She has always shown that when we have worked together in the past. If there are specific schools, communities or policies Deputy McGreehan would like to raise in terms of County Louth, I have no difficulty in meeting her and working my way through them.

Sentiment score: 0.21

The Department of Education, together with the NCSE, has been working with parents, schools, patron bodies and other stakeholders in County Louth and across the country to provide sufficient special education placements for children with special needs, in this case in the Louth area. By the end of this year, the number of special classes available nationally in mainstream schools will have doubled from 1,800 to more than 3,700 for the 2025-26 school year. This includes 400 classes the NCSE will sanction for this September. Of the 409 new special classes sanctioned by the NCSE for the current year, 289 are at primary level and 120 are at post-primary level. Of the new special classes sanctioned for the 2024-25 school year, 16 are in County Louth - 13 at primary level and three at post-primary level. That brings us to the nub of the point that the Deputy wants to make, namely, that there be a focus on the post-primary level. I will take that request back. The total number of special classes in County Louth is 98 - 75 at primary level and 23 at post-primary level. I take the point made by the Deputy and we will work with her and the communities in County Louth to make sure we address any shortfalls.

Sentiment score: 0.30