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

I thank the Deputy for the question. Deputy Gannon is quite correct that a circular was sent and the special education teacher allocations were issued to all mainstream schools on 6 February. It only raised the provision of teachers and there are a range of ongoing measures for the other supports, which I will also address with the Deputy.

It is important to say there has been no reduction in the overall number of special education teachers in our schools. The Deputy will be aware we have 14,600 special education teachers in total. This is an increase of 1,000 since 2021. This special education teacher allocation model has been in place since 2017. The Department then commenced a review of that in late 2022 to ensure it was meeting the changing needs within special education. During this review the Department listened to feedback and listened to the concerns and issues raised by our education partners and schools about the existing model. This was done through a series of different consultations. It is important to say there was consultation on this.

The feedback from those consultations was inputted and used to prepare these allocations.

The allocation model for the 2024-25 school year distributes the total number of special education teacher posts in line with each school's profile of need. It is intended that some schools will gain under this distribution, with those gains to be balanced by an equivalent reduction in schools where the model indicates less need. In totality, 67% of schools will either get an increased allocation or will retain their existing allocation. For the schools for which there will be a reduction, in more than 70% of cases, it will be less than five hours. That is very important.

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