Mr. Dalton Tattan:

I will start and then I will pass over to Ms Griffin. In recent years we have changed how we allocate special education teachers in the mainstream. In the past the requirement would have been a formal diagnosis and then a certain number of hours based on a disability category. We have moved away from that since September 2017 to the special education teacher allocation model where, based on a profile, schools are allocated that based on complex needs, on a baseline, on standardised test scores and one or two other factors That builds a picture of that school and we resource the schools based on that profile. That followed advice that we received from the NCSE and detailed work, which Ms Griffin may want to touch on. Effectively, what that means is that a child does not need a formal assessment. The resources are available in the school and will be there waiting for September.

Children who are occasionally on waiting lists, say for the HSE or others or are working with the HSE disability teams, again, it gets picked up that is complex need and it gets factored into the provision for the school. Occasionally things change. I mean a child might move over the course of a year and move to a school. That, of itself, could, depending on the child's needs or the numbers of children there, significantly change the make up of that school. In that situation there is an outlet for the school to apply for an exceptional review and get additionally, if merited.