Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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Question 83: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his position with regards to the review process of special needs assistants' allocated hours whereby the opinion of an educational psychologist can be overruled by a special education needs organiser; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38718/11]

Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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Question 85: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will review the case of a person (details supplied) in County Cork; and if he will allocate a full-time equivalent special needs assistant based on the recommendations of their educational psychologist. [38720/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 85 together. 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 Deputy should note that SENOs are professionals who hold relevant qualifications and have considerable practical expertise in the assessment of children with special educational needs and have first hand experience of what supports a child and its school require. 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. This number is 10,575 whole time equivalent (WTE) posts. I wish to clarify that the EPSEN and Disability Acts set out clearly the role and functions of the NCSE and the HSE and their staff in carrying out assessments and with regard to the provision of services for children with special educational needs. Responsibility for deciding on the quantum of educational supports and resources to be allocated to schools, or to individual pupils, rests with the NCSE in accordance with DES policy. Whereas health reports provide valuable assistance to education providers in identifying a diagnosis or identifying appropriate interventions, health staff are asked not to include references to the specific quantum of educational resources in their reports, but should state the outcome of tests carried out and the range of needs of the child as clearly as possible. The NCSE has now advised all mainstream schools, including the school referred to by the Deputy, of their SNA allocation for the current school year, taking into account the care needs of qualifying pupils attending the school. The school in question has been allocated 2.83 SNA posts and 72.9 Resource Teacher hours for the current school year. 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 has retained a number of SNA posts in order to allocate them over the remainder of the school year in respect of emergency cases, new diagnosis, or appeals by schools. Should a school seek to have their SNA provision reviewed or make a new application, they should contact the NCSE in this regard. It is expected that schools, before requesting any review of their SNA provision, will be in a position to demonstrate that they have made every effort to manage their allocation of SNA posts to best effect.