A teachers' union has accused Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe of sitting on a decision about which schools will have their special needs classes cut from September.

The axing of the 128 classes for more than 500 children with mild learning difficulties in 119 mainstream schools was announced in February as part of the education cuts programme.

The move provoked a storm of protest and 44 schools appealed the decision to the Department of Education.

Mr O'Keeffe told the Oireachtas Committee on Education three weeks ago that the appeal decisions would be notified to schools within days, but schools and parents are still waiting.

"The appeals have been sitting on the minister's desk awaiting a decision," Irish National Teachers Organisation general secretary John Carr said. Mr Carr added that parents, teachers and pupils had been in the dark about special needs provision since the announcement. He called on the minister to announce the decision without any further delay. "More than three weeks ago the minister said schools would probably have the result of the appeals the following day. Still they have heard nothing.

Looming

"Parents, pupils and schools are entitled to know for certain at this stage of the year.

"They deserve better than a dearth of information like this," he added.

Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said schools were entitled to know where they stood.

"Next September is looming and at the very least they should be told now," he said.

A spokesman for the minister said the appeals were not yet ready. "Some late ones came in and we want to let all the schools know at the same time. We will have outcomes very shortly," he said.

The minister has said a new model of allocating resources introduced in 2005 catered for children with special needs and schools that retained special classes had extra provision.

The minister's spokesman said Mr O'Keeffe was open to listening to proposals from schools where they could demonstrate that it was educationally more beneficial for the pupils involved to be in a special class rather than to be integrated with their peers and supported by the mainstream classroom teacher and the learning resource teacher.

"It would be expected, however, that provision would be made for these pupils in mainstream classes with support from the general allocation model," the spokesman said.

- Katherine Donnelly