Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)

Since this time 12 months ago we have increased the number of SENOs by up to 120. This is hugely important. Going back over many years since the Education Act 1998, the Department inspectors were the ones on the ground but now we have the SENOs. We have to embed the SENOs into their communities in order that they are the contact and are liaising between the families and schools. We need to have the SENOs properly empowered and properly bedded in, as they are a crucial piece of the jigsaw to ensuring that families know where to go. We then have the regional officers to map out what the need is across the regions as well. The first instance is to make sure that the special needs co-ordinators are embedded in the communities. An awful lot of work has been done. Over the past 12 months, we can see incrementally over the months that as they were embedded into their communities, they were becoming more empowered. They knew the challenges they were meeting at first hand. We hope that will work.

On the regional education and inclusion officers, there are 120 SENOs, 21 team managers and 2 national co-ordinators.

The important piece is the SENOs on the ground. They feed information up to their team managers and then on to the national co-ordinators. I have seen over recent months that they have become more empowered within their communities. That will give us more information on families and children with special education needs. We have to continue to work to ensure that is embedded properly into the education system.