Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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Question 152: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will reverse the decision to reduce the number of special needs assistants at a school (details supplied) in County Cork. [22689/11]

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

10,575 whole time equivalent (WTE) posts are being provided for SNA support for the coming school year. This is a significant number of posts and unlike other areas of the public sector vacancies are being filled up to this number. 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 issued a circular to all schools advising of the allocation process for the 2011/2012 school year. A key feature of the amended scheme is to provide for an annual allocation of Special Needs Assistant support to eligible schools.

The NCSE has now advised all mainstream schools, including the school referred to by the Deputy in County Cork, of their SNA allocation for the current school year, taking into account the care needs of qualifying pupils attending the school.

I wish to clarify for the Deputy that SNA allocations are not permanent, as the level of SNA support allocated to a school may be increased or decreased as pupils who qualify for SNA support enrol or leave a school. They are also decreased where a child's care needs may have diminished over time.

I also wish to clarify that the recruitment and deployment of SNAs within schools are matters for the individual Principal/Board of Management. SNAs should be deployed by the school in a manner which best meets the care support requirements of the children enrolled in the school for whom SNA support has been allocated. It is a matter for schools to allocate support as required, and on the basis of individual need, which allows schools flexibility in how the SNA support is utilised.

The NCSE will advise schools early in the new school year of any review process to review allocation decisions to ensure that correct procedures were followed and that they comply with my Department's policy. The merits of individual allocation decisions will not be open to appeal under this mechanism.

It will be expected that schools, before requesting a review, will be in a position to demonstrate that they have made every effort to manage their allocation of SNA posts to best effect.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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It is important to note that Special Needs Assistant (SNA) allocations are not permanent, as the level of SNA support allocated to a school may be increased or decreased as pupils who qualify for SNA support enrol or leave a school. They are also decreased where a child's care needs may have diminished over time.

The recruitment and deployment of SNAs within schools are matters for the individual Principal/Board of Management. The Board is the SNA's employer and the terms of employment are subject to the conditions of the contract of employment. There are therefore presently no plans to introduce a panel system for SNAs.

However, the Deputy will be aware that my Department has recently published a Value for Money (VFM) and Policy Analysis review of the Special Needs Assistant scheme. This review is available on my Departments website: www.education.ie.

The Value for Money review recommended that the Department of Education and Skills should consider conducting a cost benefit analysis, to establish if the introduction of a regional redeployment scheme for SNAs would lead to greater economic efficiency. It also recommended that alternative employment models for SNAs that could achieve greater administrative efficiencies and provide greater employment certainty for SNAs should be considered by the DES.

My Department is currently establishing a working group which will consider and implement the recommendations of the SNA Value for Money report.

In the interim, a Special Needs Assistant whose post is surplus to the approved allocation to the school may be entitled to a redundancy payment under the terms of circular 58/2006 - titled Redundancy Arrangements for Special Need Assistants. Support to SNAs who may have been made redundant is provided for within the terms of this scheme.

Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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Question 154: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will not cut resource hours for a pupil (details supplied) in Dublin 24 [22694/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The Deputy will be aware that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) for allocating resource teachers and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to schools to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support.

Circular 37/2011 provides information to schools regarding the arrangements which are being put in place for the 2011/12 school year for the allocation of Resource Teaching hours for children with assessed special educational needs.

In relation to the allocation of individual Resource Teaching hours, the position is that for the coming 2011/12 school year, an allocation of 90% of valid identified resource teaching allocations has been made by the NCSE to schools, including the school referred to by the Deputy in Ballyboden, in the first instance, to provide schools with the majority of their allocation, while also preserving enough capacity to deal with late applications and ensure that the Department of Education and Skills can remain within Employment Control Framework obligations.

Schools have now been asked to forward as soon as possible any outstanding applications, or additional outstanding materials to support incomplete applications, to the NCSE for consideration, but in any event by no later than 16th September 2011. Following the receipt of all such applications, consideration will be given as to whether there is potential to revise the 90% allocation previously given to schools, and also the extent to which new Resource Teaching allocations can be made, taking into account the number of valid new applications received and in the context of my Departments Employment Control Framework obligations.