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

I thank the Deputy. I appreciate his concern for the school. As I mentioned, Le Chéile National School is in the DEIS urban band 1. It is one of Limerick's newest primary schools. It opened on 1 September 2015. It has an assigned psychologist and I understand from my conversations within the Department the NCSE has visited the school on a number of occasions. Both a SENO and an adviser visited in November 2023 as part of an SNA review and these visits were used as an opportunity to look at all the school's needs and make its staff aware of NCSE training. It received an increase in SNAs on foot of that. The adviser will be following up on her visit to organise staff training and to support with managing behaviour and trauma as well. The NCSE is also offering the school training focused on its autism, and emotional behaviour difficulty classes as well. The Deputy mentioned correctly that the team manager will be talking to the school this week regarding its training needs and it will be receiving a high level of support from the NCSE over the coming months. Again, I will speak to the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, about the physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language supports. I will let her know the Deputy raised this in the Dáil and we will see what can be done on that. The Deputy also mentioned counselling, which falls within the remit of the Minister, Deputy Foley. There was €5 million put into a pilot programme in budget 2023 on counselling and mental health supports and I understand the DEIS schools are included in that pilot. There is also the Department's well-being policy, which was there before the pilot. The feedback and evaluation from the pilot is forthcoming.

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