Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Question 368: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she will immediately approve an increase in the resource teaching hours for a pupil (details supplied) in County Kilkenny in view of the recent report submitted to her Department by the senior speech and language therapist in the Health Service Executive, Kilkenny in response to her reply to Parliamentary Question No. 408 of 3 July 2007; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28543/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, the National Council for Special Education is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENO), for allocating resource teachers and special needs assistants to schools to support children with special needs.

The needs of the child in question were considered by the Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENO) and the child was assessed as having a mild general learning difficulty. In the opinion of the SENO the needs of this child did not warrant additional hours being given to the school. Any additional help this child requires would have to be sourced from the schools general allocation. General allocation is the term applied to resource hours given to all schools, based on the school size, for the support of children with mild learning difficulties.

The NCSE will review a decision taken by a Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENO) on foot of a request from a school or parents/guardians, when accompanied by relevant additional information, which may not have been to hand at the time of the decision. The NCSE has outlined this process in its Circular 01/05.