Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Doherty for her strong interest in the area of special education. She has always been a very strong advocate in this area and I appreciate the work she has done to date, particularly in trying to bring this school into the spotlight. As she noted, there was a very long and productive meeting on this matter yesterday.

As regards the site acquisition, I understand there are some small issues in the Chief State Solicitor's office that still need to be rectified. I assure the Senator that as Minister of State with responsibility for special education, I will be speaking with the Department about this on a regular basis to ensure it does not delay the acquisition of the site any further. There are sometimes complex legal issues that need to be sorted out when dealing with a site acquisition of this nature. We want to ensure there is no delay in this project progressing to planning and in order for there to be no delay, that needs to be sorted out. The site acquisition is in the process of being finalised by Fingal County Council and no issues are anticipated, other than the small issues arising through the Chief State Solicitor's office. Meanwhile, the design work is continuing and stage 1 work has commenced, which includes things like site investigation, site suitability and the design options. On 16 December, I received the very first submission report. We are now reviewing that and we will then come back to the board of management of the school. There is also an external professional project manager in place to co-ordinate all the various components of a project of this nature.

The Senator has quite eloquently set out the school and its main purpose, which is to provide an educational facility for children with special needs. From an overall perspective, I am pleased that this school will be moving to Hacketstown, which is in the immediate environs of the St. Michael's House Special National School in Skerries. It will provide 16 classrooms and two ASD classes. There will be a new deputy principal's office, a nurse's office and a multisensory room. I visited St. Martin de Porres National School in Tallaght this morning and it would really like a multisensory room. That will be provided in this instance, as will a home economics room. The design team was appointed in May 2020 and it has done a significant amount of work since that date. The architect, the quantity surveyor, the civil and structural engineer, the mechanical and electrical engineer and all the others have worked hard to present this stage 1 submission report to the Department, and we are currently reviewing it.

The needs of children with special needs is of paramount importance to me and I appreciate the Senator's comments at the outset of her contribution. This is the very first time there has been a Minister of State with responsibility for special education and we are getting €2 billion, or one fifth, of the overall departmental budget. That is badly needed in order that we can ensure children with special needs receive exactly the same type of education as children without special needs. That is the bottom line and we cannot have them in a building that is sub-optimal or is not providing them a proper service or a proper education.