Mr. John Kearney:

I apologise if I did not clarify exactly. The policy advice we issued to the Ministers at the start of this year was the review of special classes and special school places, tying very much into an inclusive education for an inclusive society policy. The review mechanism I referred to was the set model, which was referred to, and the various statistics that were presented and kindly shared with us at committee level. The review mechanism is a mechanism the NCSE affords the school communities if they feel that this model is not through the current set model of special education teacher allocation to individual schools. If they feel this does not completely comprehend their level of need within the school, there is a review process that we have streamlined and which we will co-ordinate over a three month period from March right up to the month of June. We have done this in a streamlined sense, in that we have listened very carefully to school principals telling us that they need a review process system to adequately cover factors such as additional recruitment or tying in with their enrolment process so it ties in on a year-to-year basis. That review process is very much tied in with and aligned to the set model. We will be affording this process and working with schools if they feel their allocation needs are not being fully met.

There were a number of other observations there. I will hand over to my colleague, Ms Walsh.