All children who need a special school place or a special class in a mainstream school in September 2026 will know where they are going before the end of this year, the minister in charge of the sector has promised.
Michael Moynihan, TD, Minister with responsibility for special education, was addressing the Oireachtas committee on disability matters on Wednesday.
Urging parents whose child will need a special education place next year to notify the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) by October 1st, he told members, “We want to ensure families have clear roadmaps for where their children will go to school in September 2026, before 2026 starts.
“Students will be advised of where there is a school place as early as possible. Our commitment to you is that we will have those decisions before Christmas 2025.”
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The October 1st deadline is considerably earlier than in previous years, when parents had until the spring to notify the NCSE. This had meant work to allocate special school places did not get under way until late spring, often leaving families not knowing where or whether their children would have a place until summer or later.
The earlier deadline would “take the stress” out of the process for families, said the Minister.
“There will be very serious decisions made by the NCSE and the Department of Education when we know the need on 1st October.”
He received some pushback from members when he said there were now fewer than 10 children without a special school place for the current school year.
“We are talking about single-digit figures at the moment ... less than 10, single digits ... I can assure you we are working extremely hard with the families ... to make sure we find a solution for those less than 10 that we have at the moment.”
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Ruairí Ó Murchú, Sinn Féin TD for Louth, said he wanted to “check” the Minister’s figures. It was his party’s information “that there is a significant [number of children] that are sitting at home because the building hasn’t materialised, loads more that are in mainstream when they have requested special classes, even more that are in special classes when they want to be in special schools.
“I am going to take a wild guess that the number is probably greater and what are we talking about is those who are not in appropriate places.”
Fine Gael TD for Mayo, Keira Keogh, said she would “respectfully disagree” that there were fewer than 10 children without a special school place.
“We might say someone has a school place, but if they are not in school then they don’t have a school place.”
She referenced a school that was “being forced to take two new children” with special needs. The school principal had been told to enrol the children and they would be allocated supports, including special needs assistants, after.
“We are now in week three and these kids are still at home because the principal cannot safely take them into the school,” she said.
“I can think of another boy who is not on your single-digit list because he is technically in school, but he is in school in a mainstream setting that is not appropriate.
“If he has to be changed he has to go home because they don’t have changing facilities for him. If he’s in the playground he is being followed around because they don’t have a fence high enough [to keep him from leaving the grounds],” she said.
Minister Moynihan said he took the members’ “points”, adding: “We are working to ensure any additional help we can give will be put in place ... We are not blind to the issues out there.”
