Mr. Jim Mulkerrins:

A number of questions have been raised, which I will separate into questions for the NCSE and questions for the Department. I will deal with the questions that are appropriate for the Department starting with the Chairman's questions.

In terms of multidisciplinary supports, members will be aware that the Programme for a Partnership Government includes a commitment to make provision for speech and language therapy through schools. We have commenced that work. We have raised the matter at a cross-sectoral meeting, which is a high level group comprised of ourselves, the Department of Health, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the HSE. We raised the matter at the last meeting of this group and another meeting is due to take place shortly. We have appointed Mr. Terry Reynolds in the Department of Education and Skills, who is seated behind me here, to take the lead on that and a lot of progress has been made. The HSE is currently doing a mapping exercise to provide us with details of where all of the resources are and the costs, etc. We expect to be able to progress the matter in the coming weeks. I am not saying we will have it finalised but at least we will make some progress having identified where the resources are to be found. The Chairman can be assured that progress has been made.

The Chairman mentioned teacher education, specifically the Middletown Centre for Autism. As she will know, the centre is a significant project for the Department and is jointly funded by ourselves along with the Department of Education in Northern Ireland. Until reasonably recently the investment by the Department of Education and Skills focused on teacher training and training for other professionals engaging with families and children with autism. We have recently extended the initiative to provide second tier services for a small number of children who simply have not responded to the first tier services.

The Middletown Centre for Autism has been reviewed a number of times with the most recent review concluded in the past few months. The reports are excellent and the joint inspectorate review highly commended the project. We continue to fully support it. We are fully aware of its benefits and the strategies deployed. In particular, we are fully aware of the confidence that the project has given parents. We have had a number of difficult cases where families had a number of children with autism. The parents found it difficult to manage and cope but once the Middletown intervention was provided anxiety levels were significantly reduced and we have been very enthused by the outcomes. We shall continue to provide support to the project.

In terms of resource teachers and monitoring relevant training, the Department is conscious that under the current model, when we allocate resource teachers, it is not down to the Department who gets the job and whether it is the right person in the school, and whether it is the person with the appropriate skill set and training. The NCSE has made recommendations in its autism advice. It has made a number of recommendations in previous advices on the skill set and qualifications that resource teachers should have.

In the context of the development of the new model and particularly in the context of the pilot, the Department developed a whole set of guidance on the matter. We did so because we are conscious that not just the resource teacher but the classroom teacher and the principal should have access to the appropriate levels of training. We have comprehensive guidance that we trialled through the pilot. The Chairman may have heard from some of the principals that she spoke to in recent days that they found the resource to be very positive. We have fed in the feedback generated by the pilot into our deliberations and we are tweaking the guidance that will be provided to all schools.

We are also in the process of developing the inclusion support service within the NCSE. The service will include the special education support service. We are hopeful the service will have a clearer and more focused approach to the development of the appropriate skill sets for teachers who deal with children with special educational needs, including children with autism.

We are conscious of the deficits in training for SNAs that have been identified. It is a complex issue that has been raised on a number of occasions, specifically in the report on SNAs compiled by the committee's predecessor. Currently, provision is made in the funding provided to boards of management to provide tailored training for their SNAs. We have had a number of discussions with the management body for special schools which is called the National Association of Boards of Management in Special Education, NABMSE, and others on this particular issue. We are conscious of the matter. It does not form part of our current model because the model is about resource teachers in mainstream schools. There are recommendations in the autism policy advice on training for SNAs so we are conscious of the matter. In the event that boards of management are not suitably equipped for this then we will consider it in the context of the implementation of those policy advices.

We are aware of the dangers of labelling children. The possibility that children have been wrongly diagnosed crops up on my desk quite often. Parents and schools have let us know that they believe a diagnosis given to a child might not be accurate. This risk is exacerbated because there is a requirement in the current model that a diagnosis will be available in order that a school will attract resources. On introduction of the new model that requirement will be gone but the assessment will still be necessary. An assessment will be necessary for a number of other schemes, including the SNA scheme. It is also necessary to inform schools and the people who work with children what the difficulties are and how best to address them. We believe that the removal of the requirement for a diagnosis in order that a school is provided with the resource to support the child will somewhat diminish the incidence of inappropriate diagnosis. We have discussed this matter on numerous occasions with our colleagues in the Department of Health. They take the same view as us that there are always risks associated with schemes that are diagnosis driven. By and large, misdiagnosis is not a huge problem. Often times, a misdiagnosis can happen because of a confluence of evidence provided to the diagnosing professional that might have been accurate at the time but leads to a conclusion that ultimately will not play out. One of the areas in which we witnessed this in the past was when children were diagnosed with emotional behaviour disturbance in advance of them joining school. In the past we had a diagnosis requirement that suggested the child constituted a danger to himself or herself and possibly to others as well. We were anxious, in the case of a four or five-year old child that it is impossible for a diagnostician to say how a condition will play out in the classroom because the child simply has not been in the classroom. We were anxious, as we included in our SNA circular, to see how a child might be impacted in the classroom before we made specific decisions about the resourcing requirements for that child. In particular, we were anxious that children would be given an opportunity to demonstrate it and that teachers would be given an opportunity to deploy the continuum of need programme by the National Educational Psychological Service for those children. We found that the initiative was quite successful. A lot of children just settled in irrespective of the fact that they had a diagnosis. It is the case that some children will have a diagnosis. That diagnosis may be correct but it may not necessarily generate a need for additional support and over a period some diagnosed conditions will simply disappear. That is true of some children but, unfortunately, not all children with autism.

We are also conscious that there may be a gap in adult services and particularly for children with autism. There is a high level of support throughout the schools system. We are aware of the fear, and other members have raised this matter as well, that when children approach the end of their school period there will be nothing for them or insufficient cover for them. We have discussed the matter with our colleagues in the HSE, particularly in terms of children who will move into residential care. It is an ongoing discussion. It is an area that the Department does not have full control over but, with that said, we are conscious of the need for additionality in terms of providing after school care, that may not necessary come from us, but also in terms of suitable transition programmes, work programmes and that kind of thing. Our colleagues in the further education section have some programmes for children with a disability. There is also the disability access route into further and higher education. I agree with the Chairman that a bit of planning must take place. We are conscious that time is moving on. It is something that we can now consider in terms of the roll-out of the new model, how children will be assessed and moved through the system, and a planned move into work and further education.

I think I have covered all of the Chairman's questions.

To respond to Deputy Jim Daly, I am glad that there is a perception that the new model has been universally welcomed. Teachers have expressed some anxiety about the model and the Department is in regular contact - at least weekly - with the trade unions on the matter. In particular, we have held a number of discussions with the Irish National Teachers Organisation in recent days and the response has, by and large, been positive.

The Deputy asked about negative aspects of the pilot scheme. While there were very few negatives surrounding the pilot scheme and the model itself, there are ongoing concerns about the quantum of supports and resources provided. It is axiomatic that the more supports the Department provides, the better it will be for all children, whether they have special educational needs or are developing typically. However, there is a limit to the pot of resources available. While concerns were expressed about the capacity of schools to do co-ordination work and so forth, these issues apply to the current and new models. The latter is essentially a new and better way of deploying the resources available to the Department for allocation to the National Council for Special Education to be provided in schools. By and large, few concerns were expressed in that regard.

Some of the concerns expressed were interesting. Principals and teachers recognised that the new model would bring about a new relationship with parents who would no longer look to the National Council for Special Education for the provision of a quantum of resources for their child and would look instead to the school for this. This will necessitate a new level of engagement. The pilot schools were up for this, which is very positive and speaks very well of management and personnel in schools. In point of fact, our guidance provides a significant degree of support for schools in terms of that level of engagement. I do not regard this as a negative; rather, I would characterise it, in a positive way, as a concern.

An issue was raised about our use of standardised tests in calculating the new resources to be provided for schools. The argument made is that if one uses standardised tests, the schools that have improved standardised test outcomes may believe they are being punished for performing well. There are two sides to this argument. The Department must take the view that every school that receives additional resources does its best with these resources and that if all schools are doing their best and one school is not performing as well as another, it will need additional help. That said, there is a legitimate concern in this regard. Our aim is to try to introduce the new model in such a way that no school will lose additional resources. If that is the case and a school has a concern that it is being punished for achieving improved standards, the reality is that it is not being punished because it will not lose out as a consequence of the improved standards. It may well be that the school's profile indicates that it needs a certain quantum of resources and that if its current allocation is higher than this quantum, it will, in the vast majority of cases, continue to receive it.

We have a piece of work to do on outliers. With the additional 900 posts provided for us in the most recent budget, a very substantial resource, we will, by and large, be able to protect current resources for all schools which would otherwise lose resources. I hope this will allay concerns. There is, however, a concern that there may be some significant outliers. For this reason, I will not give a commitment that this will be true in every case. Once we have studied the outliers and engaged in a re-profiling exercise, we will have a better indication of the position. We will need to complete the exercise a number of times to get the number right.

Deputy Jim Daly referred to teacher training and the provision of comprehensive guidance. The guidance we have provided will provide teachers with significant additional skills to understand the needs of children they are identifying for the provision of support. Much of what we are doing in the new model is giving legitimacy to a number of good practices that were already in place in schools under the old model. We are providing resources for named children under the old model. For good reasons, many schools were using these resources to deal with other children who were falling through the cracks because they had not received a diagnosis and everyone knew they were falling behind. Under the new model, this can be done legitimately. It is intended that schools will take the appropriate decisions on how to support children.

I have indicated that the National Council for Special Education has provided us with autism policy advice recommending enhanced training for teachers. We are examining this advice and also conscious that the Teaching Council of Ireland has a number of provisions on this matter.

Deputy Thomas Byrne asked whether schools would lose out. I believe I have answered that question. While we cannot yet state for certain that no school will lose out, other than those with very significant additional resources, we cannot state with certainty that this will be the case. We will examine the matter in the coming months.

The resources provided for us are substantial. As to whether they match demographic changes, they far exceed them. Demographic changes would probably require approximately 200 or 220 additional posts, whereas we have been allocated an additional 900 posts, substantially more than what would be required. This is a measure of the Government's commitment to the new model.

An issue arises with labelling. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked whether professionals were mislabelling or if it was simply the case that the recommendation was that labelling was not necessary. The latter rather than former scenario applies. It has never been the case that labelling should have been a requirement to generate additional resources. Schools are well placed to determine the learning needs of pupils and do not necessarily need to be told that a child has an emotional or behavioural disturbance or similar issue. They see this in play and generally know well how to cater for it. The labelling was essentially an administrative requirement for the Department. The first step in the new model is to dispense with this unnecessary requirement.

Parents have expressed a concern about what has been described as the post-primary cliff. We are conscious of this issue and working to support children through the transition into further and higher education and work. There has been a substantial improvement in the number of special classes at post-primary level. We are following up on the level of growth in primary schools in the past ten years and this is translating into special classes in post-primary schools. There are issues about support levels in post-primary schools and the quantum of resources available to them will be enhanced under the new model.

While the relativity between primary and post-primary level will remain, there is a requirement for post-primary schoolchildren to develop independence, where possible. Children tell us this themselves. While there are anxieties in schools and parents may also be anxious about this, many post-primary schoolchildren would like to lose their special needs assistant, if possible. We provided for this in the 2014 circular on special needs assistants in which we made provision for children having plans which between fourth and fifth class should include how their dependence on a special needs assistance would be reduced as they transitioned into post-primary education. This is a difficult and contentious issue, but we are mindful of the needs of children and young adults as they develop. We received a strong message from them that they did not necessarily like to be tied in these circumstances.

I will briefly address the resources available from the Department of Health for preschool education services. The National Council for Special Education and the Department worked hand in hand with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to develop the latter's enhanced early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme and the access route - the AIM programme - which ensures children with disabilities and special educational needs can be included in ECCE schools. Significant additional resources have been provided for this purpose. While the Health Service Executive continues to operate a number of preschool classes, we expect this to reduce over-----