CHILDREN WHOSE special needs classes have been cut are “going to be left behind largely because they’re poor”, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has claimed in the Dáil.

But Taoiseach Brian Cowen insisted that the vast majority of parents want their children educated in mainstream classes and the cuts are in classes with fewer than the minimum required nine children with learning difficulties.

The matter was raised after Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe allowed the appeals of 14 of 49 schools to keep their special needs classes.

Mr Gilmore said: “There’s no educational justification for closing down the special needs classes. The justification at the time was financial” but “the Minister has sought to dress this up as something that is being done for the educational benefit of the children”.

The Labour leader said that “what strikes me about the list of schools that have been refused is where they’re located. They’re all virtually located in disadvantaged areas – parts of Tallaght, Ballyfermot, Edenmore – this list goes on.”

The children whose classes were cut “will not get the educational leg-up they need unless it’s provided through the State school system.”

These “are children who are going to be left behind and they’re going to be left behind, largely because they’re poor, because their parents are not in a position to pay for the private tuition that better-off parents would be able to pay for if they were living somewhere else”.

The Taoiseach had said that “looking at the overall situation we’re borrowing €70 million a day to maintain present levels of services against a background in which we’re trying to bring about financial stability and this is a process that will be ongoing”.

Mr Gilmore said he appreciated the financial difficulties “but it should not be placed at the door of these children whose chance of getting the educational assistance they need is now and they should not be left behind”.

The Taoiseach insisted that “I don’t lay the question of our public finances at the door of these children or any of our children. It’s a question of having to find a way forward that will be sustainable for the future. It’s against a lot of developments in this area.

He pointed out that more than €1 billion is being spent on special needs.

The number of special needs assistants had risen from 300 a decade ago to 10,000 currently. The number of resource and learning support teachers had have been quadrupled.

He added that of the 119 schools initially affected, 80 had reduced class sizes through disadvantaged schemes and of those 80 schools, 17 would be due an extra teacher when the children moved into mainstream classes.