Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am satisfied that the Department provides an extensive range of supports for the education of deaf and hearing impaired children. This includes three special schools and ten special classes attached to mainstream schools with a pupil-teacher ratio for these classes of 7:1.

In line with the Department's policy that children with special educational needs access appropriate education intervention in mainstream settings where possible, many deaf and hearing impaired pupils are integrated into mainstream classes at primary and post-primary level with the assistance, as necessary, of resource teaching and special needs assistant support.

The Department has provided funding for a weekly home tuition service whereby tutors visit the homes of deaf pre-school children and deaf school-going pupils to provide training in Irish sign language for these children, their siblings and parents. In addition, the visiting teachers for the hearing impaired scheme provides a service to deaf and hearing impaired children from pre-school to third level.

An enhanced capitation grant is provided to special schools and mainstream schools with special classes supporting deaf and hearing impaired pupils and grant aid is available towards the special equipment needs of these pupils. Last November I announced increases of between 30% and 39% in the special capitation rates for these classes. The 2007 rate for children with hearing impairment is €785 per pupil, while for profoundly deaf children it is €805 per pupil. The Department also contributes to the professional development of teachers of deaf and hearing impaired children through funding courses in Irish sign language.

An advisory committee for the deaf and hard of hearing was established in 2001 and it met 38 times. In the course of the committee's work, however, it became apparent that there were entrenched, divergent views among representatives of deaf and hard of hearing persons and their families on approaches to the teaching of the deaf and hard of hearing and that there was little willingness to reach consensus. One group, which comes from an oralist tradition, favours a focus on teaching deaf and hard of hearing children to speak and to understand spoken language. Another group strongly advocates sign language as the appropriate and exclusive means of communication. As a result of these opposing views, the committee was unable to agree a final report, despite being set several deadlines for doing so.

In the circumstances, and following consultations between officials and the chairperson of the committee, the Department formed the view that there was no prospect of the advisory committee reaching an agreed position in the foreseeable future. The committee was therefore disbanded in 2004.

Following the establishment of the National Council for Special Education, the Department referred the issues that had been under consideration by the committee to the NCSE for its consideration. The council has commissioned a researcher from the Centre for Deaf Studies to work on this. The work is at an advanced stage and I will consider the matter further following receipt of the report from the NCSE.

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