Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The July education programme provides funding for an extended school year for children with autism and children with a severe or profound general learning disability. The programme is available to all special and mainstream primary schools that have special classes catering for eligible pupils. Where school-based provision is not available, ten hours per week of home-based provision may be grant aided to eligible pupils. In cases where there are qualifying siblings, a combined allocation is made. This is consistent with the school grouping principle, whereby one teacher is allocated to a class of six pupils. Accordingly, it is considered appropriate that a tutor can provide collective tuition in the home to siblings. Under these arrangements, each child is receiving a full ten hours of tuition.

In previous years, the application process may have failed to identify siblings, resulting in double allocations in some cases. This year's application process has corrected this historical deficit. Therefore, there has not been a change to the scheme's criteria.

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