Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Jan O'Sullivan asked to what the figure of €236 million relates. It covers pay restoration, not only for new entrants but also other elements.

I pay tribute to Deputy Jan O'Sullivan for the work she did when she was Minister for Education and Skills. During her term, she implemented a pilot programme and gained acceptance for the new approach, which I fully support. The new model provides a better, more integrated service for children with special needs and encourages the whole school to take an interest in children with special needs. It is good for children with and without special needs and encourages leadership in schools to be more creative in the use of available resources. This model presents a win-win scenario in that it moves away from the requirement for diagnostic testing which was a source of inequity in the scheme. On the basis of the work that was done, we rolled out the new approach nationwide from this year onwards, while also providing more resources for special educational needs. This year, for example, provision was made for 900 additional resource teachers to ensure we had the capacity to roll out the new model without creating losers and in such a way as to meet the demands of appeals and so on. As the Deputy noted, provision has been made for 100 additional teachers in rapidly developing areas as well as provision for normal demographic expansion. While the scheme will not grow as rapidly as it did under the old model, schools will be geared up to have the resources to meet their needs.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan also asked what action was required in the area of special needs assistants. The National Council for Special Education is carrying out a review of best practice and I understand it has examined the position in 33 different countries.

It is working to come up with proposals that would offer a better approach to supporting the requirements of children with special needs, for some of whom a special needs assistant is not the only requirement. Deputy McLoughlin raised the development of a pilot speech and language therapy programme. That pilot programme is a first toe in the water of having a speech and language therapy service delivered within schools, whereby speech and language therapists would support schools in order that both special needs assistants and teachers could help deliver a speech and language service to children in the school. There are many gains to be got from that. It is a toe in the water of how that can be done. It is only a pilot programme at this point.

On the issue of special schools, we are making provision for the allocation of additional teachers to special schools. A pupil-teacher ratio operates within schools. It is made up of different ratios depending on where pupils are on the autism spectrum disorder, ASD, ranging from mild to more complex. There is an pupil-teacher ratio underpinning the allocation to special schools in place. It reflects the complexity of the children they are dealing with. If there is a higher level of complexity, they would be seeing a higher level of resources.

On the junior cycle reform and well-being programme, we committed to the allocation of the equivalent of nearly 600 extra teachers to provide professional time to allow the junior cycle to be rolled out, including the well-being programme. It was a significant investment of resources to underpin that. The well-being programme is being rolled out from this year. It starts at a 300-hour programme and it is hoped that will build over time. There has been a warm welcome for the programme. Most teachers and schools recognise the difficulty in this area.

We have made provision for additional recruitment of home economics teachers for St. Angela's College in Sligo for the past two years. There is a recognised deficit there. We are making other provisions to address teacher supply issues generally and we had the first meeting of a teacher supply group this Monday to address that issue.

On the issue of the career guidance service and where it is heading, we are conducting a review of it this year and we will examine how effective it is. The review will also examine how young people get access to career information and if we should be looking at other channels of information for young people. It seems that the way in which young people get access to information is more complex than we thought and perhaps there are other initiatives we should be taking to get good career information into the hands of young people, as well as career guidance counsellors who have other roles to play. There may be other ways we can address that.

On the issue of superannuation, we will have to meet the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and discussions are taking place with that Department. Our forecasts of expected superannuation are accurate but we need to have an agreed provision with that Department. Discussions are taking place in the context of next year's Estimates to deal with that.

In response to Deputy McLoughlin's point on the number of special needs assistants, this is the first year in which we have moved away from an assessment of requirement for special needs assistants that had to be conducted in the spring-summer part of the year, after which Government approval was sought, which was the old way it was done. This resulted in late notification to schools as to when special needs assistants were being allocated. We changed that this year. Last year's budget made provision for 1,090 special needs assistants, the anticipated provision that will be needed for this coming September. We will be in a position to notify schools earlier as a result of not having to go back and get a separate budgetary provision.

The Chairman raised an important issue about middle management. Significant progress on the issue of middle management was made this year. We made provision for 2,600 additional assistant principal posts mixed between primary and second level. That was on foot of a new approach to the appointment and deployment of middle managers in schools, which will be more flexible. This is the start of building a stronger middle management, which will be important for the challenges we have to address in schools and which are becoming more complex. There will be more flexibility in the way responsibility is given to such middle managers, how they report and record progress and so on. A more professional approach is being taken to middle management, and responding to that we have invested in 2,600 additional posts at assistant principal level.

On the issue of the availability of places for children with special needs and the capital provision for that, our Department is very responsive to needs in this area and it gets special access to capital. As approximately 80 additional special needs classes are being provided each year, the provision is growing very rapidly. It has more than doubled in the past four or five years. The experts are here but, as I understand it, the breakdown of that is that 60% go to mainstream, 20% to special classes, and 20% to special schools. At this time of the year, people are considering what is the appropriate placement, assessments are taking place, there is engagement with special education needs organisers, SENOs, and so on. I can understand parents being anxious at this time of year but, by and large, we are meeting all those needs. There can be a difficulty in placing individual children and that takes time. Of foot of a recommendation of the Chairman's party, we will be introducing a measure whereby the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, will have the power to require a school to open a special needs class in the event that schools are not co-operating. By and large we are seeing that level of co-operation. The number of special classes has increased from 540 to in the region of 1,200 in the space of five or six years. That is a very rapid expansion. It is moving from being at primary to now being at second level, reflecting that children are being retained into second level, which is what we are trying to achieve. Those the issues the members raised.