Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

I am committed to the sustained development of supports and services for children with special educational needs. Approximately 1,000 applications for resources for new entrant pupils were considered on a priority basis for the current school year. Each application was responded to by, or shortly after, 1 September last. As a consequence, a further 131 resource teacher posts and 282 special needs assistant posts were allocated to primary schools. In addition, my Department is continuing to respond to emergency applications as they are received.

The balance of more than 4,000 applications received between 15 February and 31 August 2003 has been reviewed by a dedicated team comprising members of my Department's inspectorate and the national educational psychological service. These applications are being further considered in the context of the outcome of surveys of special needs provision conducted over the past year or so. Account is also being taken of the data submitted by schools as part of the recent nationwide census of special needs provision.

It is intended to advise all applicant schools of the result of their applications as soon as possible. This notification will take account of the outcome of discussions on a weighted system of allocation of special education teacher support. In that regard, my officials have initiated discussions with representative interests on the development of a weighted model. The development of a weighted system is complex and time consuming, involving not only discrete allocations for individual schools, but shared allocations between smaller schools. I am, however, hopeful of a conclusion in the near future.

While it would be premature to anticipate the outcome, the basic purpose of the weighted system is to ensure each school has the level of resources required to cater for its pupils with special educational needs. Pending the conclusion of discussions with the representative interests, schools are advised to refer to circular 24/03, which issued in September 2003. This circular contains practical advice on how to achieve the most effective deployment of resources allocated for special educational needs within the school.

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