Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 238: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the extent of special needs teaching facilities available to a person (details supplied) in County Kildare; if the facilities available are sufficient to meet the child's requirements; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12665/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I can confirm that an application for five hours resource teaching support and a full-time special needs assistant, SNA, was considered by my Department. As the Deputy is aware, a letter issued to the school in September 2004 advising that three and a half hours resource teaching support was sanctioned. The school authorities were also advised recently that this pupil did not meet the criteria for SNA support as there was insufficient evidence of care needs. I can also confirm that correspondence relating to the level of this pupil's SEN allocation was received recently in my Department. This correspondence has been sent to the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, for consideration. The NCSE will make direct contact with the school in this context and the school authorities will be notified directly of the outcome.

The school currently has the services of two learning support teachers and seven resource teachers. It is a matter for the school to deploy these resources to meet the special educational needs of the pupils in the school.