Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senators for raising this issue. It sounds like a very compelling case, given that a school with 930 students has so many students with language difficulties. The Department is aware of the report mentioned and I want to commend those who were involved in its compilation. I know it was motivated by people who want to do the best for their students. This is a challenge that has only faced educators and the Department in the past couple of years. Our approach to how we can meet the educational needs of these children is still developing. There is a scheme in place for non-national pupils with significant English language deficits and there are various supports available to them. Even though I outlined them, it appears that 225 students sounds like a extraordinary large ratio of students with language difficulties.

If a school has 14 or more non-English speaking non-nationals, then it is automatically entitled to a full-time temporary language support teacher for a period of two years, or two teachers if the school has 28 students with such difficulties. In the past year, the Department paid for 220 language support teacher posts at primary school level for these children. On top of that, there is a grant system where if a school has between three and eight pupils with such difficulties, the school gets a grant assistance to take measures to help improve the standard of English of the pupils. That amounted to €6,348 as well as €9,523 for schools with between nine and 13 such pupils. This is also for a maximum of two years to allow people to source a person who could provide language tuition. Schools like this one, which have 28 or more such pupils, are entitled to two full-time temporary language support teachers. This school has three such teachers so it is already going over and above the number that would be the norm as the maximum in any one school.

As the Senators will know, particularly Senator O'Toole who may have drawn up half of the schemes for the Department——