Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 222: To ask the Minister for Education and Science further to Parliamentary Question No. 505 of 4 April 2006, the way in which the person was judged to have made sufficient progress in the special class to warrant only temporary resource teacher support in the mainstream class despite the fact that they struggled in a small class setting; the reason the SENO did not consult with either the class teacher or the resource teacher in this situation; and if she will revise this case in view of the circumstances. [19038/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that the child in question commenced in the school referred to above in September 2005 having previously attended a special class for children with speech and language disorder. The school put in place four resource teaching hours per week for this pupil at the beginning of the current school year. The special education needs organiser (SENO) advised the school authorities that based on the professional documentation that was available, this child did not qualify for individual resource teaching hours under my Department's guidelines. Subsequently the SENO agreed, as an exceptional measure, that the school could retain the four resource hours in respect of the child for the current school year only (2005/2006).

As the Deputy is aware a general allocation system has been introduced under which all mainstream primary schools have been provided with learning support/resource teacher (LS/RT) support, based on certain enrolment figures, to cater for children with high-incidence special educational needs such as mild general learning disability and those with learning support needs. The school in question has been allocated 15 LS/RT hours per week under the general allocation model. It is open to the school authority to assign resource hours to this pupil from this general allocation.