Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was reported widely in the newspapers that the Minister's Department specifically asked the National Council for Special Education not to release the resource teaching allocations for a period of three to four weeks. Those allocations only arrived after the commencement of the school holidays. This has created immense difficulties in the context of trying to match up resource teaching hours among schools. As the Minister is aware, it is often the case that two, three or four schools may be obliged to come together in order to make up a resource teaching post. I am of the view that the resource teaching allocations should have been announced earlier. I was not aware that the previous practice was to announce them in conjunction with those relating to SNAs. I was of the view that in previous years the allocations had been announced much earlier. Perhaps the Minister might provide further information on that matter.

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