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

On the issue of resource teaching and SNAs, we have increased the provision by over 40% so it is a very rapidly expanding area. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, recently undertook a study to make sure that the approach to such supports would be a whole-school approach, particularly with regard to resource teaching. That has been successful and there were extra resources to put in to make sure that would be effective. On the issue of release days for training, we will certainly look at that. Where CPD, as they call it, continuous professional development, is provided to schools in support of curricular content, there are release provisions in certain cases and I will get the Deputy a briefing on that. With regard to speech and language, we recognise that there is scope to look at in-school speech and language delivery and we will be initiating a pilot project this year to see if a better approach can be developed. If that pilot is successful - I believe it will be - I think we would look to expand services so speech and language could be accessed in the classroom. Mental health has been recognised as a cross-government issue, not just for education. There is a task force on youth mental health and it is one of what is described as a pathfinder project where cross-government collaboration is actively being pursued.

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