Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. I know he has an interest in the area of special education. As he knows, the most recent budget allocated €2.2 billion to the area, which is over 25% of the entire education budget. That is in recognition and acknowledgement of the importance of special education. The Government respects the fact that this is an area that needs funding, support and care.

We have at present 14,385 special education teachers. That is an increase of 48% since 2011. Our complement of SNAs has increased by 81% to over 19,000. The role of special education teachers is obviously important for our children. They provide additional teaching support for students with special educational needs enrolled in mainstream classes in primary and post-primary schools.

That special education teacher model was rolled out a couple of years ago and we have based, to a certain extent, the SNA front-loading model on that. It takes account of the profile of the school. There is a baseline component, gender is taken into account, as is geography and the socioeconomic background of the school. The special education teachers and the SNAs are available to children when they go into a school and there is no delay in children getting the resources they need. Obviously, if a school believes that its special education teacher allocation is not sufficient it can, in exceptional circumstances, have that allocation reviewed. It is important that schools do that if they believe they do not have sufficient resources for their children.

In terms of the schools building programme, under Project Ireland, the education sector will receive a total of €4.4 billion.

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