Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 21: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will provide a list including dates of all planned reviews of special needs assistants for schools before the end of 2011; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34845/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible for allocating Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to schools in accordance with my Department's policy.

Over the summer, the NCSE has advised all mainstream schools of their SNA allocations in respect of valid applications received by 17th June.

The NCSE retained 475 out of the total 10,575 SNA posts available in order to allocate them to valid applications received since 17th June, in respect of cases such as emergency, appeals, injuries, or new school entrants. The process of allocating these posts has begun.

The NCSE have advised that they expect approximately 300 of the 475 retained posts to have been allocated to schools by the end of November. A number of posts will be required to be retained for allocation during the remainder of the school year.

The NCSE is currently reviewing SNA allocations for special schools and processing new applications from mainstream schools. As the dates and times for these reviews are arranged locally, my Department does not hold details of the dates for such reviews.