Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The association said it recognises that every child does not need such a service. I was present and discussing a playground while a child slept on the shoulder of a special needs assistant, which is not good for the development of a child. It is important that the allocation of special needs assistants, working with the SENO, should ensure the service meets the needs of the child as he or she develops. This would give the child the skills to be able to be increasingly independent.

On the question of one-teacher schools, if the principal teacher in a one-teacher school is unavoidably absent — some of these schools have just seven pupils, and there are approximately 20 such schools remaining in the country — they are entitled to a substitute for the day. However, because of the particular situation in regard to the islands this year, I allocated a second teacher to one-teacher schools on the islands because they would not have been able to get a qualified substitute at the time. A special exception was made in this regard.

In reply to Deputy O'Sullivan, an SNA is assigned to a school to meet the needs of a particular child. If that child moves on or if the needs of the child change, the SNA will be redeployed to someone else. As they grow older and gain extra skills, if a child no longer requires the full-time services of an SNA, that person can be shared between children. The local special needs organiser is designed to link in with the parents and the school to ensure the needs of children are being met. It is hoped to reach the stage where they will also link in with the health services.

There is no doubt there is a difficulty in regard to speech therapists because the local health regions are finding it extremely difficult to recruit them. We have increased the number of people being educated. There are more speech therapists graduating from the colleges. We have doubled the numbers, which I will get for the Deputy.

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