Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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229. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his attention has been drawn to the major collective effect of the cuts to special needs assistants for children with a disability; and if he will reverse these cuts. [22823/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The National Council for Special Education (NCSE), through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), is responsible for processing applications from schools for special educational needs supports, including Special Needs Assistant (SNA) support. The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support.

I wish to advise the Deputy that there has been no reduction to the total number of Special Needs Assistant (SNA) posts which were available to the NCSE to allocate to schools this year. 10,575 whole time equivalent SNA posts are available for allocation, which is the same amount as in recent years and which represents an increase in the number of posts which were allocated in 2009 and 2010.

Details of all of the SNA allocations which have been made to schools by the NCSE are available at www.ncse.ie.

All schools were asked by the NCSE to submit their applications to the NCSE for SNA support for the 2013/14 school year by 15th March, 2013, and schools will be advised of their new allocations in advance of the coming school year.