Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Question 104: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of special needs assistants assigned to schools in County Kildare; the number of these which will have their contracts renewed prior to the ending of the 2004-05 school year; if a more formal structure will be put in place for special needs assistants in view of the fact that many are investing their own funds in training and have built up valuable experience; if she intends to introduce specific contracts for special needs assistants; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19769/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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There were 273.31 whole-time equivalent special needs assistants, also known as SNAs, employed in 80 primary schools in County Kildare on my Department's payroll at the end of May 2005. It is not possible to say how many of these will have their contracts renewed for the new school year. Responsibility for the recruitment and employment of SNAs rests with the relevant school authorities.

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. I can confirm that 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.

Applications for SNA support are now dealt with by the National Council for Special Education which processes all applications for support from schools and communicates the decisions directly to the schools. At this stage, the council has dealt with all new applications from schools for SNAs that will be required from the beginning of September 2005.

However, 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, that is, 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. In this regard, 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.

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 issues raised by the Deputy. In the circumstances, it would not be appropriate for me to comment specifically on any of these issues.

The Deputy will be aware that this 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 nearly 6,000 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.