I again welcome those from Every Child Matters who are in the Public Gallery. I commend presenter Eric Roberts for bringing the reality of Ireland's special education crisis home to us all with his television programme this week. He has put a human face on what families, teachers and SNAs experience every day in our special education crisis.

I pay tribute to those families and parents who participated in the programme, including Labour Councillor Alison Field, whose experience is featured. Ali has fought for years to secure a school place and appropriate supports for her son James. She had to apply to 19 schools before securing a place. This week is her son James's birthday, so I wish him a happy birthday. Ali and James's family should never have had to fight this battle, and no one else should either. Every child has a right to an education. Yet families like those in the Gallery, those on Eric Roberts's programme and those like Ali's family still face the same agonising uncertainty, despite years of assurances. What we have seen is provision for children with additional needs falling far behind what is needed.

Can we have an urgent debate on this and when will every child in Ireland who needs a special place and special supports get that?

I did not see the programme last evening but have made the point that the expansion in the number of teachers, SNAs, special classes and special schools has been exponential in the past five years. I do not know whether the programme acknowledged that or not but those are the realities. There has been a dramatic expansion in the past two years alone as well as in the past five years and that has created problems in terms of the physical capacities of individual schools. I did not know that a particular school was referenced earlier but that school had an opportunity five or six years ago to have a completely new building on a new site next to a therapeutic centre but it refused it. In some cases, there is a background as to why certain facilities are as they are.

Stapolin is a new school. Clearly it is doing great work in terms of accommodating and facilitating children with additional needs who are coming in. Again, significant investment went into that new school only three years ago.