Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 November 2025
370. Deputy Marie Sherlock asked the Minister for Education and Youth the reason there are no specialist therapies and supports available to special schools dealing with severe educational behaviour difficulties. [65355/25]
View answer372. Deputy Marie Sherlock asked the Minister for Education and Youth to list the number of SEBD special schools in the country and their respective staffing profile. [65357/25]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 370 and 372 together.
Special schools support children and young people aged between 4 and 18 years of age with the most complex special educational needs and ensure positive links are established and fostered between the home, school and other agencies for these students.
The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) advise that there are seven schools with a designation of Schools for Emotionally Disturbed Children. However, it is important to remember that a number of special schools have diversified since they were established to enrol students from their local area with varying degrees of complex needs. This diversification allows children and young people to attend their local special school without the need to travel long distances so as to receive the supports they need.
The Programme for Government 2025 commits to the introduction of an Education Therapy Service (ETS). This service will begin in special schools and gradually extend to special classes and mainstream settings, ensuring that all children can access essential therapies in a timely and effective way. The allocation of €16 million in Budget 2026 will support the continued rollout of this service, including the recruitment of additional occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, along with the necessary resources and supports. This service, which will focus initially, on Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy.
These therapeutic services will provide therapeutic supports across a multi–tiered model working in a universal, targeted and individualised way to maximize every child and young person’s participation and potential in education.
This is a transformative initiative, one that will make a real difference in the lives of children and families. It is anticipated that the ETS will commence in 45 special schools at a later stage in the 2025/26 school year will be supported by a panel of 90 therapists comprising of senior and staff grade. The NCSE is currently preparing a large-scale recruitment campaign which is anticipated to go live in the coming weeks. Further roll out of the service will occur on a phased basis. The delivery of this support to the initial 45 special schools has been identified as a key benchmark in track progress, as will the subsequent rollout to additional special schools over 2026/2027 schools year.
The development and delivery of this service will be informed by detailed engagement, which is on-going, with our colleagues in the HSE and stakeholders and will build on the National Council for Special Educations’ (NCSE) work previously completed through the Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS) and the School Inclusion Model.
In addition to the ETS, the NCSE have been developing an education -based therapy support service known as the ETSS. This service currently provides two strands of support to schools, Regional Therapy and Sustained In-School Therapy to both mainstream and special schools.
Sustained in-school support (SIT) is provided to schools for a defined period of 18-24 months in line with the School Inclusion Model. 22 schools in the Eastern region are currently availing of this service and 28 schools in the Western region will receive support under SIT from September 25.
Regional therapy support provides Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) with follow on/implementation support by NCSE therapists. The focus of this support is to build the capacity of schools and to embed the learning from TPL into their teaching practice, through In-school coaching and co-facilitation of interventions, strategies and resources, with a focus on whole school (Tier 1) and targeted/school support levels (Tier 2) of a multi-tiered system of support. Regional Therapy seminars is available nationally for the 2025/2026 school year.
My Department and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) are committed to delivering an education system that is of the highest quality and where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential.
