I want to raise the issue of educational disadvantage and inclusion. This week, I met the parents of children with dyslexia. They set up a parent advocacy group and within a short period of time more than 60 people had been in contact with them. I have also been in touch with parents who had expected a dyslexia unit to be established in the school on Roselawn Road only for it to be pulled at the last minute. Many parents acknowledge and accept, as do teachers and educational psychologists, that mainstream is not the best for every child and that some will need extra and intensive support in a special setting. Will the Minister engage with the Minister for Education to ensure a special unit or school is established in Dublin 15 to ensure that in the first instance every child will get a chance to have the best education we can provide and to ensure students are not forced to travel up to two to three hours every day to a special school in Swords, Tallaght or the north inner city?

I was very glad to take part in a recent Cabinet subcommittee meeting that exclusively looked at this issue for three hours. It was hugely informative. Perhaps I may share some personal reflections on this. There was some media comment in recent years on the New Brunswick model, whereby everyone can be in a mainstream school. The view of many parents' advocacy organisations here, and to my mind rightly, is that we will still need a variety of choice. For each child there is a different need. Included in this for a variety of conditions we will need special schools that cater for special needs, or special abilities as one of my colleagues rightly calls them. It is also noticeable when we look at the research statistics that there has been an amazing increase in the amount spent on special needs education in our country, be it on special needs assistants, special teachers or special schools.

Go raibh maith agat.

However, there are gaps and if Dublin 15 is one of these then absolutely we need to close them.

We are over time.

It is very important that we protect every child in the way we manage this.