Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hope I did not mislead the Deputy when I said there is no need for diagnostic test for a child to get support. I am not saying that diagnostic tests are no longer relevant or valuable. A diagnostic test can be valuable in the hands of a teacher in order to give an indication of what is needed.

In many cases, the special learning needs of a child will be quite obvious to a teacher. Under this model, teachers will not have to wait for a diagnostic test to be done before they can provide teaching support to a child. Where a diagnostic test is of value in setting out an educational programme for a child, that will be used and will be a valuable input for a teacher.

I reiterate that we are putting 900 extra teachers and €54 million of resources in place in order to support the improved model. It is not a question of shortchanging people who will be enrolling in September this year compared to those who enrolled last September. There will be more resources available to meet the needs of children this September than there were last year.

I will get the Deputy the details of the number of people involved in the verification process. At this stage, schools are mainly asking how their calculation was done. I do not think a school has said a profile said it would have three children with complex needs but it has much more than that. That sort of appeal has not reached us yet. I will try to get the Deputy some information on the state of play of the verification process.

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