Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 401: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if remedial teaching in Irish is provided in gaelscoileanna; her proposals in this regard; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21640/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that my Department implemented a general allocation system of learning support/resource teachers (LS/RT) to mainstream primary schools in September 2005. The system is intended to cater for children with high-incidence special education needs such as borderline mild general learning disability and mild general learning disability and specific learning disability. The allocation is also intended to support those with learning support needs, that is, those functioning at or below the tenth percentile on a standardised test of reading and/or mathematics.

It is a matter for each school to identify the pupils with learning support and high-incidence special education needs that will receive supplementary teaching support. Each school will have enough resource teaching hours to provide its pupils with a level of support appropriate to their needs. The school can use its professional judgement to decide how these hours are divided between different children in the school, to ensure that all their needs are met. My Department issued a guidance circular to schools which contained detailed information on how the system operates.

The learning support resource teaching service is available to all mainstream national schools including gaelscoileanna. Boards of Management are obliged to recruit fully recognised and qualified teachers to LS/RT posts to deliver this service.