2026-01-22

We have recently had announcements of three special education classes for the Wicklow constituency. Two are for Greystones Community College, which is a brand new building that will hopefully open soon, and one is for Dominican College in Wicklow town. We will have three special education classes in secondary schools open. The one for Dominican College Wicklow was sanctioned and meant to open last year. The Department then pulled that sanction, so this is really a reannouncement of a sanction. Setting that all aside, no primary schools received additional special education classes in the entire constituency of Wicklow. I was really surprised. I welcome the opening of any classes, so I welcome the three secondary school classes, but compared to the amount of demand and what I am hearing from parents, I do not understand how only three classes were sanctioned. I am aware of 16 parents whose children have letters of eligibility and need a special education class. The majority are for primary schools. I collected this information just last week. I could sit down here and come up with four for Bray. I could find an entire class for the Minister of State now, so I do not know how more were not sanctioned. Coupled with that, I am aware of schools that want special education classes sanctioned. They asked the Department or the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, for them but those have not been sanctioned. There seems to be a complete mismatch between what the demand is and what the provision is, and I just do not understand it. I wanted to raise that with the Minister of State. Parents are very worried, and they deserve answers about this. The other thing I want to raise is the fact that there are still a number of children who do not have the letter of eligibility. I have raised this with the Minister of State previously. The portal to get that letter of eligibility was closed on, I believe, 1 October by the NCSE. I asked at the time what would happen to those parents who did not have the documentation ready or who were not aware of the portal. The Minister of State told me, and this has been the position of the NCSE, that parents and children would not be left behind and would be supported. That has not happened. There are parents of children who did not receive a letter of eligibility because they did not get a chance to apply for one, and their children could not even apply for a special education class. I am not sure what they are actually meant to do. Those parents are incredibly worried and stressed. It seems to me that nobody really knows what is happening. The system has changed for special education classes and it is still in a very transitionary period. I understand that. You change policies; that happens. What we cannot have happen is children falling through those gaps. That is absolutely not fair. I am aware of a child who has been offered a special school place and the school is willing and able to enrol the child but the special educational needs organiser, SENO, has refused to issue a letter of eligibility because the deadline was missed. We have a place that is waiting for a child who needs it and that deadline is stopping them getting it. I am aware of another child who the letter of eligibility said needed a special class place. Their local mainstream said it could not give the child that place and they needed to go somewhere else. That means travelling the entire length of the county and there are no places. It seems there is a lot of confusion and, unfortunately, parents and children are bearing the brunt of it. I really hope the Minister of State can come in and clarify some matters for me. I will always welcome any classes being opened but I do not think enough are being opened.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue because it allows me to outline where things are at. Two weeks ago, we announced the first tranche of the special classes. There will be multiples of those over the next number of weeks. It is not the case that it is just the number of classes that were announced as opening two weeks ago; there are a number of them. To reassure the Deputy, we are aware of the challenges in Wicklow, both on a special school and special class basis. I will deal with this in two pieces, if the Deputy does not mind. We moved the date to 1 October because when I came into this position last year, the deadline was 1 February. Due to Storm Éowyn and so forth, it was really 1 March before we understood the level of need. We moved back the date so that we could plan properly for right across the country and see the level of need that was there. There has been a volume of work done since the middle of October when the figures were correlated to try to meet the demand within the communities. On the point the Deputy made in relation to travelling, some of the onerous journeys that children with additional needs are travelling would try anybody. It is hugely important that we put the class in where the need is within the community. In the first instance, I reassure the Deputy that we will be opening more classes. They will be announced over the next number of weeks. We will be announcing them on a phased basis. The NCSE and the Department are working meticulously through the numbers, along with school authorities, some of which have been absolutely fantastic in putting their hands up and saying they will take a special class. We are moving with that. We have challenges in other parts of the country where we will have to work extremely hard with patron bodies and school authorities to make sure we have special classes there. There is a lot of work ongoing in relation to this. We met right up to 23 December and we were meeting early in January to do it. Regarding the children who were notified after 1 October, in a previous contribution I made to the Deputy, I said we were acutely aware of it. We are striving to make sure that all children will have school places. That is what I set out at the very start when I was appointed almost a year ago now. We are working to that basis. We understand the challenges that are there. Regarding what the Deputy has raised with me, I have seen it coming through quite clearly where there is a school place but the letter of eligibility is the issue. I assure the Deputy that the National Council for Special Education and the Department of education are working very diligently to try to resolve those matters. Regarding Wicklow, I reassure the Deputy that we are aware of the need within Wicklow. While only three special classes were on the list last week, there will be many more to follow. If we are to meet the need in Wicklow, there will be special schools and special school places. I assure the Deputy we will. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter. It is important that, in the Dáil, we give information to families because they are stressed and challenged about this. We are working extremely hard. We understand their plight and their difficulties and stresses. We are trying to make sure the system works. We are changing the dates and bringing them forward. This is for better planning so that we have a better system in the future than we have had heretofore.

I thank the Minister of State. It is not often that I, or any Opposition TD, comes in here and gets the answer they want from a Minister of State. I welcome the fact he has confirmed there will be additional special education classes for Wicklow and that they will be announced shortly. In relation to letters of eligibility, I understand the Department is working hard on this issue but what can I tell parents? As I said, one child has a place and the school is happy to take the child but the family does not have the letter of eligibility. The SENO has actually said they will not issue one because the deadline has been missed. Does the Minister of State have a message I could give to those parents who do not have a letter of eligibility? What are they meant to do? Do they talk to the SENOs? How do they apply for a letter of eligibility in the absence for the portal being opened? Ideally, it would be brilliant if the Minister of State opened the portal because that would be the simplest way to deal with this. Otherwise, people are relying on individuals within the system. I ask the Minister of State to open the portal, even if only for a few weeks, to allow the backlog to go through. What do I tell parents in this instance? I will raise another issue with the Minister of State that came back very strongly when I spoke to parents. While it is brilliant that there are special education classes and places for children on the autism spectrum, there is a huge deficit in places for children with mild learning difficulties. That is a very big problem as well. I ask the Minister of State to take that into consideration. I know the NCSE will sanction places based on what the demand is but that issue is coming to me very strongly. At one stage, the special schools were told they would not be able to take in children with a mild learning difficulty diagnosis and they would have to go mainstream but mainstream schools do not have the capacity. Some of those children will get lost in some of the very big schools. I ask the Minister of State to take that into consideration when developing policy in this regard.

I note the issue the Deputy has with the family who are looking for a letter of eligibility. If she shares with me details of that specific case, we will take it up and respond to the Deputy, rather than giving a carte blanche reply. It is important that we are very clear in our public statements that we are working extremely hard to make sure children who were notified before 1 October last have provision. We are also aware of the challenges that have arisen since 1 October. We have to make sure we do the right thing for all children. The concern I have is that we brought the date back to 1 October last year to have better planning. We will have to bring that date back further. We will make announcements about that earlier. We need to get it into the system. The challenge the Department has is that we are not getting the information early enough. We have children on the access and inclusion model, AIM, programme or on domiciliary care, which are in different Departments. We need all of that information because if we are to do the right thing and ensure we do not have endless debates on special education in the Dáil, the Seanad or committees, we need to know the challenges being faced and plan accordingly. We will move to an earlier date to ensure better planning. We have to deal with all aspects of education. The date is hugely important for proper planning. We are looking at all cases notified after 1 October and we are working extremely hard. If the Deputy shares details of individual cases she has, I will look at them and do the best I can. I thank her for raising the issue because it allows me the time to do that. I thank all Deputies for constantly raising these issues because it is hugely important to have them raised on the floor of the Dáil.