Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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314. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason his officials requested the National Council for Special Education to make the announcement of the resource teacher and special needs assistant allocations to schools at the same time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34180/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The NCSE, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), is responsible for processing applications from schools for special educational needs supports, including the allocation of resource teachers and Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to schools. The NCSE operates within my Department's established criteria for the allocation of Special Education supports and the staffing resources available to my Department.

All schools were advised to apply to the NCSE for resource teaching and SNA support for the 2013/14 school year by 15th March 2013. Following that deadline, the NCSE processed all these applications as expeditiously as possible in order to allow schools and principals sufficient time to plan for the coming school year. The NCSE initially published details of the allocations for SNAs and resource teaching hours for the 2013/14 school year on Wednesday 19th June 2013.

While the extent of demand for resource teaching posts may have been known to my Department in advance of the announcement, the extent of SNA demand only became known just prior to the announcement. As in previous years, it was decided to simultaneously announce resource teaching allocations and SNA support allocations simultaneously. This could only be done once the full demand for all special education supports was known. In particular, this approach gives schools clarity on their supports for the coming year.

As the Deputy will be aware, there will not now be any reduction to resource teaching time for children on the level which applied last year. Full details of resource teaching and SNA allocations for all schools can be found on www.ncse.ie.