People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy has criticised plans to give local children with additional educational needs just 100 minutes of class a day.
Reddy highlighted the case of a local student and 11 other children with additional educational needs, who are in school from 10:45 until 12:30 each day in a local community hall in North-West Dublin.
The situation, part of a wider crisis within Ireland’s education system, took hold after a promised special class at a local at fell through due to planning and funding issues.
One mother said she was offered a place after making 106 applications to schools over two years.
Families were initially told the modular classroom in the school would be delayed until October; they have now been told it will be March at the earliest before their 2025/26 school places are made available.
With the school year now well underway, the children are being taught in an off-site, part-time provision in a local community hall, which falls well below the standards required for children with additional educational needs.
The hall fails to meet basic standards for a special education setting, namely sensory-appropriate space, toileting, safety and accessibility, and therapeutic supports.
In addition, staff are working tirelessly to scrape together resources from the Department and are working in difficult conditions, with their calls for additional funding and resources going unheard.
For children with additional educational needs, a community hall doesn’t cut it; environmental triggers and sensory issues are delicate elements of special education that need to be taken into account in the context of special education, and this situation is less than ideal for the children involved.
The boy’s mother, said, “after everything, 106 applications, two years of waiting – we’re being offered nine hours a week in a community hall.”
“There’s no assurance it’s suitable for the boy or his classmates, and the hours basically mean I’d have to give up my job. My son needs and deserves a proper, full-time school place, not a stopgap.”
Reddy said, “nine hours a week in a hall is not education; it’s a holding position that shifts the burden onto families.”
“The Department and the NCSE must deliver full-time, suitable placements for all 12 children as a matter of priority. They must now publish a clear build timeline and stop outsourcing responsibility to parents who’ve already waited years.”
Reddy said the government are not interested in tackling the crisis, implying they are merely interested in the PR associated with announcing fixes for the issue but never actually following through.
“It was a disgraceful, cynical exercise that Ministers Helen McEntee and Aindrias Moynihan announced new special classes earlier this year – a manoeuvre to release pressure that had been building as a result of parent sleepouts and protests.”
“It was cruel and totally wrong to announce classes that they were unsure they could deliver; schools and the NCSE are now under pressure as a result of grubby politicking.” the Ballymun-Finglas councillor said.
Earlier this year, the Northside People covered a number of sleepouts and protests outside the Department of Education, where parents were demanding action on school places.
The pressure put on the government seemed to work at the time, with details of new classes announced in April by Minister McEntee.
Announcing details of the new classes in April, Minister McEntee said, “children with additional needs who need and deserve a school place are at the heart of these decisions, and I firmly believe that this is in their best interest.”
In July, Minister McEntee said that investment in special education funding would be her “priority” as €7.55 billion in funding for Ireland’s education system between 2026-2030 was announced in July’s National Development Plan.
She previously said to Cabinet that she would use “emergency powers” to compel schools to open additional special classes; this did not happen in advance of the 2025/26 academic year, with the classic excuse of “unforeseen delays” being trotted out.
In the protests that took place outside the Dáil and Department of Education this year, there was a strong contingent of parents from areas like Finglas and Tallaght present, a strong indication that the crisis in special education is just as much about class divides and geography as it is about funding.
Academic and sociological studies carried out in the United Kingdom and Ireland have explored whether there was a correlation between socioeconomic status and the diagnosis of autism in children.
Census statistics from 2022 found that the Finglas area had a deprivation level of 7.4%, well above the national average of 2.2%.
Per the National Health Intelligence Unit, 24% of people in the Finglas area had a 3rd level education, below the national average of 33.9%, but the crucial detail in the set of statistics is that 23.4% of people in Finglas had a disability, above the national average of 21.5%.
In 2011, when that Budget was delivered, there were 173 psychologists employed by the National Educational Psychological Service, which deploys psychologists to Irish schools. In 2024, 225 psychologists were employed by the state, a mere 29.4% increase in that time. In the meantime, the number of students sitting state examinations has only doubled.
In 2011, 59,000 students sat the Junior and Leaving Certificate exams in Ireland; in 2024, that same figure had more than doubled to 136,000, a 130.5% increase.
The number of psychologists employed by NEPS has failed to scale up with the demand, which means that more children with intellectual disabilities and additional educational needs are slipping through the cracks.
As for the children who actually receive a diagnosis? The system itself has failed, leading to situations like what is now seen in Finglas.
Reddy noted, “this isn’t just one case, it’s hundreds of children left without their right to education because promised classrooms weren’t delivered.”
The parent said the situation is “not surprising, sadly.”
“We are also waiting for years to access speech and language, psychology and occupational therapy for children – the CDNT, schools, assessments, the whole system is broken, and the government do not seem to care.”