Last week, mothers from Donegal travelled up here to sleep outside the gates of Leinster House. They did so in desperation because their children, ten with additional and special needs, do not have a school place for September. There is only one school in the county that they can go to, and that is Little Angels. It is now more than six weeks since I raised this on the floor of the Dáil with the Minister. It is a month since I put a proposal to her, with my colleagues, on how to resolve this issue, and I am in regular contact with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, but these parents still have no certainty.

The new Little Angels school was built with fewer classrooms than the existing one – it is a scandal – despite the growing need for places. The old school is going to be left empty. Sanction is needed to allow the additional ten pupils to get their education. Can the Minister give any comfort to the families because it is absolutely cruel that the mothers who had to come here last week, although given commitments that they would know the position early this week, are still in limbo? Specialised equipment has to be ordered for the children; they cannot just walk into school in September.

We are going to stick to the time.

This needs to be sorted because a school in the hands of the State could be lying empty.

I reassure the Deputy and, most important, the parents and their children that the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and I, working with the NCSE and the Department, will ensure the children have school places come September and do everything possible to make sure those places, in so far as it is possible, are within the children’s communities and that they have the right resources and supports when in school. We have to make sure children can access the supports with the school places they need in their own communities, and that is exactly what we are working towards.

When?