Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 772: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the efforts she has made to ensure that special needs assistants continue to be employed in the system when their pupil moves on. [19811/05]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 773: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the reason special needs assistants are put on pay scales when they are only assigned to a pupil for eight years and have no tenure when the pupil moves on; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19812/05]

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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Question 781: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of contract types that exist for special needs assistants; the nature of such contracts; the number of special needs assistants employed under each contract type (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19876/05]

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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Question 782: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her Department has given consideration to the establishment of a panel for special needs assistants to facilitate the redeployment of experienced support staff; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19877/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 772, 773, 781 and 782 together.

Special needs assistants, or SNAs, are assigned to schools to meet the care needs of individual children who have been assessed by a psychologist as needing this type of support. It has always been the case that where the care needs of a child no longer justify SNA support, that support should no longer have been available to the school.

There has been no change to the criteria or guidelines for allocating SNA support to schools and there are no plans to review the criteria or guidelines under which SNA support is allocated. Applications for SNA support are now dealt with by the National Council for Special Education which processes all applications for support from schools and communicate the decisions directly to the schools. The recruitment and deployment of SNAs within a school is a matter for the individual board of management.

The arrangement for the payment of special needs assistants employed in schools is similar to many other types of employment where employees are paid on a salary scale irrespective of the duration of the employment. This complies with the terms of the Fixed Term Act 2003.

The individual boards of management of schools are the employers of SNAs and the contracts that they have are a matter between the employers and individual SNAs. Therefore, the specific information requested by the Deputy in this regard is not available to my Department. My Department is engaged in discussions with the trade union representing SNAs, under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission, on a number of issues relating to the employment of SNAs, including the matters raised by the Deputies. In the circumstances it would not be appropriate for me to comment specifically on any of these issues.

The Government has put in place an unprecedented level of support for children with special needs. Indeed, since 1998, the number of SNAs has increased from under 300 to over 6,300 nationally. More effective systems, such as the establishment of the National Council for Special Education, have been put in place to ensure that children get support as early as possible.

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 774: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the reason a school (details supplied) in County Wexford is losing four to five special needs assistants; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19813/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Special needs assistants, or SNAs, are assigned to schools to meet the care needs of individual children who have been assessed by a psychologist as needing this type of support. There has been no change to the criteria or guidelines for allocating SNA support to schools and I can further confirm that there are no plans to review the criteria or guidelines under which SNA support is allocated.

In order to ensure that resources are used in the most effective manner, a review has been conducted in recent months to establish whether primary schools have the level of SNA support that they need for children in their care, whether they have resources which they no longer need or whether they need extra resources.

The review has found that some schools no longer have the care needs for which the SNA was originally sanctioned. In some cases the child may have left the school while in other cases the care needs of the child have diminished as the child has progressed through the school. The schools where surplus SNA support was identified have been advised that they may retain this surplus until the end of the current school year.

A review of SNAs support has recently been completed in the school referred to by Deputy. At the time of the review the school had the services of four full time SNA posts and 154.8 part-time SNA hours. When the review was completed, it was determined that the appropriate level of SNA support in the school in question could be catered for with eight full time SNA posts. The net effect of the review was the loss of one full time SNA post and approximately 13 part-time hours. This information has been communicated to the school authorities.

The Government has put in place an unprecedented level of support for children with special needs. Indeed, since 1998, the number of SNAs has increased from under 300 to over 6,300 nationally. In addition to this, more effective systems, such as the establishment of the National Council for Special Education, have been put in place to ensure that children get support as early as possible.

Special education support services are properly targeted at the children who require them and that the substantially increased resources which are being made available in the special educational area have the desired effect of ensuring that all children assessed as having special needs receive the support they require.