Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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Question 253: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will report on the allocation of the 475 special needs assistant posts held in reserve by his Department. [27852/12]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that 10,575 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) Special Needs Assistant (SNA) posts have been made available for allocation to schools by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) throughout the current school year, subject to qualifying applications being received. In September 2011 the NCSE allocated 10,100 posts to schools while retaining 475 posts to cover late and emergency applications. This measure ensured that there would be sufficient posts to support all children who required such support in line with Departmental criteria. Details of the 10,100 SNA allocations made by the NCSE have been published on their website at www.ncse.ie.

To date the NCSE has allocated 10,324 WTE SNA posts to schools. Therefore, no child who met the criteria for access to SNA support has been denied this support. Schools have been advised to make applications to the NCSE for resource teaching and SNA support for the 2012/13 school year by 16th March, 2012. Schools will subsequently be advised by the NCSE of their allocation for the 2012/13 school year, based on the number of valid applications received and in the case of SNA support, the extent of the care needs of qualifying children.

Finally, I wish to advise the Deputy that no reduction has been made to the overall number of SNA posts which will be available for allocation to schools for the 2012/13 school year. This is representative of the Governments commitment to protecting services for children with special educational needs, at a time when there has been a requirement to make savings across a range of expenditure areas.