I have previously welcomed the substantial and much-needed increase in investment in special education. The establishment of additional special classes and autism spectrum disorder units and the provision of additional staffing resources are positive developments in the context of overall education provision in our country. More investment is needed to establish more special classes. I commend the work of the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and the Minister, Deputy Naughton. The chief executive of the NCSE, John Kearney, and his colleagues are very determined to make more progress in this area.

The Taoiseach may recall that I have previously raised with him and with other members of the Government the existing inequity and the disadvantages suffered by smaller schools due to the difficulty they have in reaching the required enrolment threshold for special classes. As I pointed out previously, this inequity impacts severely on schools that are under the patronage of the smaller churches. Such schools generally have small enrolments. This enrolment threshold also impacts severely on other smaller schools which, in most instances, are located in what are rural and, sometimes, remote areas. We are all aware of children having to travel too far to access special classes. That is far from ideal for pupils or parents. I again appeal for the enrolment threshold to be amended. A new model of system for the establishment of special classes is needed now. It is necessary to properly support smaller schools and schools under the patronage of the Protestant and smaller churches. Those smaller schools want to cater for all their pupils in the best possible way. The legitimate interests of those schools must be addressed.

Children need to be facilitated with appropriate school placements as near to their homes as possible and, if at all possible, with their siblings. Regrettably, the current model has detrimental effects on our smaller schools. I am aware of instances where families who have a child in a special class in a larger school have transferred a sibling or siblings to that larger school. Pupils leaving their own catchment areas can impact on the viability of small schools in the longer term. I fully understand the strong and legitimate wish of parents to have their children attend the same primary school. There must be an alternative way to improve access to local schools. If additional resources are needed, they should be provided. In rolling out the much-needed additional investment in special education, the Department must ensure that those welcome decisions and measures do not cause problems in the long term for our smaller schools, in some instances threatening their very viability. We cannot emphasise strongly enough the need to have siblings attend the same school.

I thank Deputy Smith for raising what is a fair and important point. I know this is something he has worked tirelessly to improve. The current threshold of six pupils for a special class at primary level with one teacher and two SNAs was introduced in 1998, when I happened to be Minister for Education and Science. We introduced a model of this kind for the first time and brought SNAs into mainstream education. Since then, the model has supported an enormous expansion of special education provision. Of course, the Deputy's point is that it might not always work for small rural schools. He mentioned instances where it has not and has particularly identified the issue of siblings and families attending the local school. We do not want children with additional needs having to travel unduly long distances simply because their local school cannot reach a threshold. The concern is specific and legitimate. The Department probably needs to look at this to identify both the scale of the problem and what the issues are, and how one would go about dealing with the latter.

The Deputy's point is that if a small rural school cannot reach the enrolment threshold of six children with additional needs, then those children may be denied a local placement, forcing families to deal with long daily journeys and often separating children from their siblings in the same school. That is an additional burden on families.

The preference has been for the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, and the Department to consider opening special classes in medium and larger primary schools. The issue when it comes to smaller primary schools has been more challenging. Of the 504 new special classes sanctioned so far by the NCSE for the coming school year, 330 are at primary level. More than one third, or 139, of those will be opening in primary schools with eight teachers or fewer. Of those, 69 will be opening in primary schools with four teachers or fewer. That is a significant number in itself. We need to drill down into the detail of this in order to try to identify the need and what, potentially, the response could be. This does demonstrate that the NCSE will sanction special classes in our small primary schools where there is a level of need and where there are schools with available accommodation and a willingness to open new special classes. The new inclusive special class model introduced this year is an example of an innovative step in this space, allowing 12 students to be supported in existing special classroom where space is constrained.

As of now, this may not meet the Deputy’s point about the rural school threshold, but the inclusive special class model is a more innovative approach. It may provide a route to try to deal with the issues the Deputy identified. It will take a bit more working out, but-----0

Thank you, Taoiseach.

-----that may provide some opportunities into the future.