Irish Examiner view: Numbers do not add up when it comes to special classes

System denying children their right to an education

Every year families seeking special education for their children are left without a school place. Stock picture: Larry Cummins

The revelation in Wednesday's Irish Examiner that there were 800 vacant spaces in special classes in schools across the country, flies in the face of the actual experience of many families desperate to secure appropriate education for their children.

For too many years, parents have been stymied in this regard by an apparent lack of any facilities in their areas, yet official figures — revealed as a result of an exercise carried out by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) at the start of the current school year — recorded 782 vacancies in special classes attached to mainstream schools.

These figures suggest some form of serious disconnect between these numbers and the reality faced by families up and down the country every year.

The fact of the matter is that every year families seeking special education for their children are left without a school place. 

Parents are thus left with few options.

They are sometimes forced into taking legal action, making emergency appeals, or making public protests. 

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Obviously, none of these options is appealing.

These realities contradict any suggestion of widespread surplus capacity around the country. 

One conclusion to be drawn is that there is something fundamentally wrong with how such surpluses are counted.

There are two of issues here — first, the Department of Education and the NCSE need to publish detailed and transparent information about operational places; secondly, the department has to address the convoluted barriers that stop children taking up those places.

Until these issues are addressed, the system will continue to deny children their right to an education.

The system as it exists is obviously flawed and while the timeline for parents to apply for places for their children for next year has been brought forward by four months to try to ensure better planning, it does not address what appears to be an alarming discrepancy between the numbers and the need.

Cattle rustling: Resurgence in farm theft

The theft last weekend of 18 cattle from a farm just outside Skibbereen has raised fears that a rustling gang is back on the scene.

While it might seem incredible in this day and age that such activities are even possible, let alone lucrative, it appears that those involved are not only highly organised and professional thieves, but that they are making a comeback.

In November and December 2022, the suspected gang stole cattle from farms in Aughadown and Ballyvourney.

The animals were never seen again, and the perpetrators never caught.

With the way cattle are now tagged and so easily identifiable, it is regarded as improbable that they were moved on to anyone in this jurisdiction.

The suspicion is that they were transported north of the border and sold there.

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A similar case in Kerry some years ago resulted in the arrest of two men, and it was established at the time that the rustled animals were shipped to the North.

Activities of this nature by criminals take a lot of organisation, and gardaí believe that the 12 Friesian heifers and six Friesian bulls — with an estimated value of €30,000 — were taken from the unoccupied farm at Lakelands, between the Drimoleague and Drinagh roads out of Skibbereen, between last Sunday night and Monday morning.

The animals were taken from a shed on the farm, and gardaí believe a lorry or tractor with a large trailer unit was used in the theft.

The wider community may have thought this sort of criminality died off years ago, but that seems not to be the case.

Transport links: A new direction

Knowing they were facing an electoral armageddon, the Green Party wanted to leave a legacy after its term in office during the last coalition government.

That legacy was to see the redevelopment of the public transport system in this country prioritised over road infrastructure.

While the Green Party felt this was the best way to leave its stamp on its time in power, many of its partners in government did no. The voting public also had mixed views.

That legacy was abruptly torn up yesterday as the current administration unveiled the actual monetary allocations for the revised National Development Plan, which is shifting the focus from the Greens’ ideal of a 2:1 public transport bias to a ratio of 1:1 between public transport and road development.

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The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the revised Department of Transport sectoral plan, but the work to be carried out under it — including the spending of €1bn on Cork’s new commuter rail upgrade — now needs to be prioritised and brought to a swift conclusion.

There is a new momentum in Cork that is pushing a radical new vision for the city and, if it is to see full fruition, then the full weight of the Government needs to be brought to bear.

There is considerable irony for the Green Party that a major rail development it pushed for will now happen, but major road projects — including the M11 Cork-Limerick motorway and the M28 Cork-Ringaskiddy motorway — will also now be fast-tracked.

The ambition of reimagining Cork is gathering pace and so too is the growth of the city; part of that vision needs to see the city’s inward and outward transport links modernised and delivered.