The mother of an autistic child has said she applied to 47 schools but was not able to get a place for him, while another said her daughter is being "locked out of an education" as no school place is available for her.
At the start of the term last September, 126 children with special educational needs were without a school, according to the Ombudsman for Children's Office. Many of them are still not attending school, as they have been unable to find a place in school that suits their needs.
Holly Walsh's son Kristian is one of those children.
"Unfortunately, Kristian didn't get a place in any of the 47 schools that I applied to (last year). So, I knew then that we were going to stay at home.
"Kristian has regressed. He used to have a few words, but he has no words anymore. There's no motivation for Kristian to get up in the morning to get dressed. He knows he's bringing his sisters to school, and he says every morning "car, car", he wants to get in the car. He wants to go to school.
"Kristian has no help with his physical health, his emotional health, psychological health. He has no skills. I'm very close to having a mental breakdown because I feel like I can't support my children. I'm due a baby in April. I'm afraid to have this baby because if there's something wrong, I'll have to fight again, fight again and fight again," Ms Walsh said.
AsIAm CEO Adam Harris said a lack of forward planning by successive governments has played a role in allowing this situation to develop.
"For a long number of years, the State did not plan a sufficient number of special school places. And while provision is being planned at present and we've seen more schools open in recent years, it has not kept abreast with demand," he said.
The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) said that 1,700 special educational classes have been created in the last five years, with an additional 400 coming on stream in the next school year, totalling 3,700 special educational classes nationwide.
However, some children have quite specific additional needs.
Charlotte Cahill’s daughter, Cyra, remains in preschool because she has not been given a primary school suitable to her requirements:
Ms Cahill said: "Last year alone, I applied to 32 schools across the country, but we were unsuccessful in getting a suitable place. A lot of the applications came back with oversubscription, or she just didn't meet the criteria for that school.
"Cyra has a diagnosis of autism. She has ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder) alongside her autism, and she has pathological demand avoidance. She can't attend a mainstream preschool. She has to attend an autism specific preschool.
"Normally you get about two years there, but we had to fight last year to get an extension. While we were fighting for that, there was about an eight week gap, and during those eight weeks, Cyra went back to not sleeping and she was self-injuring again. She wasn't eating. She lost 10kg in the space of eight weeks. It was absolutely horrendous. I don't know what we will do if Cyra doesn't get a school (in September).
"If she gets what she needs, it will be fine. She's doing absolutely fantastic in the school that she's in and that's the type of environment that she needs to be in.
"She's been locked out of an education. She's been locked out of her given right to succeed in life, and I just think it's so unfair that parents have to go to this extreme.
"We have to share and be so vulnerable for people to listen to what we're going through and actually do something about it. It's exhausting and it's just mentally draining the life out of us."
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The Department of Special Education said all those without a school place in September were subsequently offered one.
Asked why some children are still not in school, Mr Harris explained: "With any other child in the State, their parents have a plethora of options of where they choose to send their child to school.
"And yet, there is an expectation that our children should be happy with any place that's offered, whether it meets the needs of the child, whether they're being asked to travel long distances outside of their community, or whether parents have concerns around the school.
"At present, we see families go through real emotional turmoil as they're passed from school to school to school, applying for places that often, the Department [of Education] would be able to tell them don't exist.
"Critically, we need to move to a point in time where we have a centralised application process where people file one application, and then are able to identify a school place that meets their needs, working with the NCSE," he added.
Minister of State with special responsibility for Special Education and Inclusion, Michael Moynihan, said "there is going to be a special unit... that the whole of Government looks at people with disabilities and how we can make lives better for them from the cradle right through the grave."
He conceded that "extra Special schools coming in Cork, Monaghan, Tipperary and two in Dublin this year alone... won't be able to meet the demand that's there" and added that the Government needs to "expand greatly the number of special schools that are being built".
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore has said that it is "not just about building schools" and renewed her party's call for a senior minister for disabilities.
"So someone who's actually sitting at the Cabinet table and has a department working for them to make sure that the voices and the needs of people with disabilities are at that Cabinet table and are being considered fully," said Jennifer Whitmore.
"It's not just about building schools or building units, it's also about making sure that we've the resources there for them, that we have the staff for them, and a certain level of forward planning needs to go into that," she said.
