Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, has advised all mainstream schools of their special needs assistant, SNA, allocations for the 2011-2012 school year. SNA provision in special schools is currently being reviewed. Some 475 of the total 10,575 SNA posts available are being retained in order to allocate them over the coming school year in cases such as emergency, appeals, acquired injuries or new school entrants. Approximately 10,100 whole time equivalent SNA posts have therefore been allocated to date. The NCSE will publish details of the SNA allocations which they have made to schools to date for the 2011-2012 school year. This will be available on the NCSE website shortly at www.ncse.ie, a new departure undertaken by the NCSE at my request. The NCSE has capacity to increase SNA allocations for schools from the retained pool of 475 posts. However, as these posts have to cater for demand to the end of the school year school year the NCSE must manage the allocation of any additional posts in a measured and prioritised manner.

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