I raise an issue related to special education. Since the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, assumed their roles they have been doing their best to get to grips with the crisis we are facing in special education in particular. I taught in a classroom for 15 years. It was always a struggle to find people to teach special education. Historically it has always been that way. The problem has become more acute as the years have gone by. We recognise teachers who teach in the Gaeltacht and on the islands and they get an allowance for that. It is high time for recognition to be given to special education teachers because many teachers, like me, could walk into a special school in the morning and teach, but are not trained to do it. Special recognition needs to be considered in the upcoming budget. The provision of an allowance might entice more people to get into that profession.

I thank the Deputy. I too acknowledge and recognise our entire teaching profession, our teachers, our special education teachers, our SNAs and the entire school staff who support children every day and those who support children with special educational needs. It is for the reasons outlined by the Deputy that I wrote to the Teaching Council recently to ensure we put a process in place such that any person coming through teacher training would have a focus and emphasis placed on a mandatory element on special education teaching and mandatory placements in special education classrooms and rooms, so every teacher has the ability to support every young person no matter what their needs are. We have a separate body of work being done looking at our teacher workforce, including how we support teachers, how we encourage more into the profession, how we keep those who are there and how we encourage those abroad to come home. We need to look at all options and ways in which we can support teachers, not just those who are teaching children with special or additional educational needs. We need to acknowledge the work they do and support them in every way possible.