At least 13 families in Dublin 15 have no school place for September for autistic children. Ellis, aged five, has no school place. He has applied for 24 schools and received 24 refusals. What is required? His parents need to fill in the school application, give two proofs of address via bills, give his original birth cert and baptismal cert and give proof of his PPS number, along with all relevant reports, such as private speech and language assessment, full autism assessment, two private OTs and public autism assessment. All these reports add up to around 100 pages. That is 24 packs of 100 pages to get 24 refusals. The State should not be putting this and other families in this place. What commitment can the Taoiseach give that Ellis and the other children will have a school place for September in Dublin 15?

I thank the Deputy for his question. I am aware many parents are concerned about where their children will be in September. To reassure the Deputy, the Department is spending one third of the education budget on special education. This September, we have 400 new special classes coming onstream. Of those, 300 are already allocated and a further 100 locations are being identified by the Department of Education, working closely with boards of management and schools. I appreciate the pressure parents are under. I am in constant contact with the Department and National Council for Special Education, NCSE. I would like to see a system where parents get advance notice and are not waiting so long. We are ramping up resources around the NCSE, putting special educational needs organisers, SENOs, on the ground, working directly with parents and schools and ensuring they are visible on the ground. That is why we are increasing the number of SENOs from 70-odd to 120 and they will all be in place by the end of August.