(IRELAND) Wicklow: Five new special classes NOT ENOUGH

Jan 21, 2026, Irish Independent: Wicklow ‘falling behind’ as just five new classes sanctioned for children with special educational needs

https://m.independent.ie/regionals/wicklow/bray-news/wicklow-falling-behind-as-just-five-new-classes-sanctioned-for-children-with-special-educational-needs/a1931668417.html# 

A Wicklow TD has criticised the allocation of special classes for primary and secondary schools for the 2026/27 academic year, calling into question the data used to determine how just five were approved for schools in County Wicklow.

Schools were notified last week when the full list of 68 new special classes nationally, across 159 schools, published by the National Council for Special Education. The five special classes sanctioned for Wicklow went to: Dominican College, Wicklow town (1); Greystones Community College, Greystones (2); St Joseph's Templerainey, Arklow (1); Coolfancy NS, Carnew (1).

Social Democrats TD for Wicklow, Jennifer Whitmore, expressed serious concern over the Department of Education’s sanctioning of only five new special classes in the county.

“I am really happy to see that five new classes will be opened, but the scale of this new provision is extremely limited. Wicklow is a big county with a growing population – it’s vital that our services keep pace with that growth and, at the moment, education, and specifically special education, is falling behind,” Deputy Whitmore said.

“We need to have all the facts from the Department of Education – how many children in Wicklow applied for a special school place and how many will be accommodated by these new classes? On top of that, how will the Department determine the allocation of just five new classes? The schools in the area are doing all that they can for their students, but I’m not confident that the Department is.” . . .

. . .Deputy Whitmore said there were “huge issues” with the process for applying to special classes this year, as children in need of a place in a special class for 2026/27 had to submit to a centralised portal in order to access a letter of eligibility that they needed to apply to a special class.

"This portal, managed by the NCSE, was ill-communicated and many parents either missed the deadline, could not apply to the portal because they were lacking necessary documentation – largely due to the waiting lists for special needs services – or simply did not know how it operated as they had not been adequately informed,” she said.

“In practice, this means that there is a large group of children out there who need a place in a special class and could not even apply to make themselves known. Now, the department has sanctioned special classes on the supposed basis that they know how many children need spaces, but how could this be the case when these children were locked out of the special education system? These children would be eligible for a place in a special class, but they could not make themselves known to the department.”

Deputy Whitmore said she was calling on the Education Minister to publish detailed figures outlining how many children in Wicklow are seeking special education places, what the current level of unmet need is, what the projected demand for the next five years is, and what criteria is being used to determine special class allocations.