Four new special schools will open in counties Limerick, Meath, Wexford and Kildare in September of 2024 to cater for a rise in the number of students with Special Educational Needs (SEN), the Department of Education has announced.
The schools will cater for children and teenagers with autism and complex learning needs.
The department has said the schools are being planned after analysis by the National Council for Special Education (NSCE) and the department found that the level of need in these areas could not be catered for by expanding places in existing special schools.
The schools will be located in Limerick city, Enfield, Gorey, and in the south Kildare area.
However parents in recently established special schools have queried whether the new schools will provide therapeutic supports for their pupils.
Seven new special schools were established in the cities of Dublin and in Cork over the past four years and children in some of them have yet to receive the therapeutic supports that they require, parents say.
These supports include speech and language and occupational or behavioural therapies.
"It is great to see new special schools but the whole point is that they should get the resources," says parent Sarah Mahon. Her six-year-old son Charlie attends one of the new schools, Our Lady of Hope Special School in Dublin.
Ms Mahon says that the school is "special" in name only.
"The staff are brilliant and they do the best they can but these children have challenging behaviours and they need therapies.
"I assumed the kids would receive therapy and that is why I wanted Charlie to go there but unfortunately that is not the case.
"His school is no different from a mainstream school with a special needs unit. The most we have is a sensory room."
A parent at Carrigaline Community Special School in Cork told RTÉ News that out of 48 students in the school just four are receiving therapies. Niamh O'Grady said only children who live in the school's immediate area are entitled to therapies through the local disability network team.
Ms O'Grady said some families were "suffering dreadfully as a result" because without therapy their children were deregulated and anxious.
"It is not fair on the teachers and the SNAs.
"The school is brilliant but providing a special school without therapies for the children is like providing a science lab without the Bunsen burners. The therapies are as crucial for these children as teaching is."
It is the HSE not the Department of Education that is supposed to provide therapies for school children with special educational needs.
Announcing plans for the four new schools, Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion Josepha Madigan described it as "a landmark day for parents of children with special educational needs in these areas".
"I am committed to ensuring that every child has a school place appropriate for their individual needs," she said.
The Department of Education said planning for the establishment and opening of the new special schools would begin immediately.
It said "this will include a determination of the size of the school required so that the necessary staff recruitment, school policy development and related arrangements can be put in train".
However the Department of Education statement made no mention of the provision of therapeutic support for pupils.
Last year the HSE told RTÉ News that severe staffing shortages were to blame for the lack of therapists for children. A HSE report published last December revealed that most of the regional teams charged with providing therapeutic services to children had vacancy rates of more than 30% with the rate running as high as 65% and 68% in two areas.
