Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 235: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will carry out a comprehensive review of the reduction of staff numbers involved as special needs assistants; his views on the expected numbers involved in the coming years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9436/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that, as opposed to there having been a reduction in the number of Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) , there has been a continual increase in the number of SNAs in recent years. For example, there were 10,543 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) SNA posts in place at the end of 2010 and 10,342 at the end of 2009.

I intend to prioritise and support special educational services. However, I cannot re-visit the previous Government's decision to place a cap on the number of posts available under the SNA scheme. This number is 10,575 whole time equivalent (WTE) posts. This is a significant number of posts and unlike other areas of the public sector vacancies are being filled up to this number.

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) for allocating resource teachers and SNAs to schools to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support, which now includes a requirement for the NCSE to have regard to an overall cap on the number of SNA posts.

It is considered that with equitable and careful management and distribution of these resources that there should be sufficient posts to provide access to SNA support for all children who require such care support to attend school, in accordance with Departmental criteria.

The NCSE recently issued a circular to all schools advising of the SNA allocation process for the 2011/2012 school year. A key feature of the amended scheme will be to provide for an annual allocation of SNA support to eligible schools.

The NCSE asked schools to submit all applications for SNA support to them by 18th March, 2011 and intend to inform schools of their annual SNA allocation as soon as possible, in advance of the coming school year.

My Department and I will be glad to consider any suggestions from school management or parent representative organisations as to how the allocation of SNA resources can best be managed within the context of the overall limit on SNA numbers established. In this regard I am committed to making whatever improvements are possible to the resource allocation system.