Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this Commencement Matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, who is somewhere else as we speak. The Minister would like to thank the Senator for raising this matter and wishes to assure the House that the education of children with special educational needs remains a key priority for the Government. She welcomes the fact that even in the constrained economic circumstances faced in recent years, we have been able to continue to meet the needs of children with special educational needs attending our schools and to increase provision to address emerging needs in this area. The SNA scheme, in particular, has been a major factor in ensuring the successful integration of children with special educational needs into mainstream education and in providing support to pupils enrolled in special school and special classes.I hate that term. It should be changed to "specialist schools" - that is a personal view. In July last, the Minister secured Government approval for an additional 610 SNA posts to the end of 2015, in addition to the 365 SNA posts provided in 2015, to take into account increased demand and demographic growth and to ensure children can continue to have access to additional supports in school. There is now provision for 11,940 SNA posts in 2015, which is the highest level of SNA provision that we have ever had, and is an increase of 13% on the number of posts available since 2011.

The Minister assures the House that schools which have enrolled children who qualify for support from an SNA will continue to be allocated SNA support in a manner appropriate to their needs. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, through its network of local special educational needs organisers, SENOs, is responsible for allocating resource teachers and SNAs to schools to support children with special educational needs. The council operates within the Department's criteria in allocating such support and these criteria are set out in the Department's Circular 0030/2014. All schools were asked to apply to the NCSE for resource teaching and SNA support for the 2015-16 school year by 18 March 2015. Of course, the NCSE continued to accept applications after this date in recognition of the fact that enrolment may not have been completed or where assessments were not completed. Details of SNA allocations to schools for 2015-16 is available on the NCSE website at ncse.ie. Each school's allocation of SNA support can change from year to year and may be increased or decreased as students who qualify for SNA support enrol or leave a school. New students with care needs may enrol to replace students who have left, for example, or SNA allocations may be decreased where a child's needs have diminished over time.

The Senator's specific query relates to the allocation of support to an individual school. The Minister can confirm that the NCSE has advised the Department that the school currently has an allocation of 0.5 SNA for the 2015-16 school year. This represents no change over the SNA allocation to this school in the previous school year. The NCSE has also advised the Minister that this allocation to the school was not the subject of an appeal and it has received no new applications for additional SNA support for this school. On this basis, the council is happy that the school currently has the appropriate level of SNA support to meet its needs The Minister would like to thank the Senator once again for the opportunity to clarify the position. From time to time, the information the Department has is different from the information public representatives receive.