Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The home tuition scheme is primarily intended to provide compensatory instruction for pupils who have a medical ailment that is likely to cause major disruption to their attendance at school. My Department provides home tuition grants in respect of pupils who cannot attend school at all, or who are absent for a significant proportion of the school year. The Department also sanctions home tuition in cases where children await a suitable school placement.

The child to whom the Deputy refers was previously placed in a special school and availed of a number of hours home tuition grant each week to facilitate her access to the applied behavioural analysis, ABA, method of intervention.

At this stage the child has enrolled in the autism centre to which the Deputy refers. This centre provides tuition to children with autism predominantly through the ABA method. In the circumstances there is no longer any reason a home tuition grant would also be necessary.

The Department provides funding to the autism centre in question on the basis of one tutor for every child enrolled. In the circumstances I am satisfied this centre is sufficiently well resourced to provide whatever level of one to one support is required for this child.

At this stage, I advise the parents of this child to raise the issue of the centre providing their child with an appropriate level of one to one support directly with the centre. It is important that parents engage directly with the people responsible for the education of their children on an ongoing basis, whether in respect of children placed in mainstream primary schools, or in the type of autism centre to which the Deputy refers.

See this speech in context