Written answers

Thursday, 30 June 2005

Department of Education and Science

Special Educational Needs

8:00 pm

Photo of Cecilia KeaveneyCecilia Keaveney (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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Question 583: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the position in relation to a review of an application for a special needs assistant for a person (details supplied) in County Donegal; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23553/05]

Photo of Cecilia KeaveneyCecilia Keaveney (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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Question 584: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the position in relation to a review of an application for a special needs assistant for a person (details supplied) in County Donegal; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23554/05]

Photo of Mary HanafinMary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 583 and 584 together.

As the Deputy is aware, special needs assistants, 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.

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.

I can confirm that a review of SNA support has been completed at the school in question. The review has taken account of the level of SNA support currently in place for both pupils referred to by the Deputy. My officials will be communicating the outcome of the review to the school as quickly as possible.

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 over 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.

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