Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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81. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will give detailed consideration to the motion passed by a local authority (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42916/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that 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 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.

I wish to advise the Deputy that there has been no reduction to the number of SNA posts being provided for schools for the coming school year. This provision remains at 10,575 posts, which means that the same number of SNA posts are being made available this year as has been made available in recent years.

In relation to the allocation of resource teaching support for schools, I wish to clarify that in June of this year I authorised the NCSE to maintain the level of resource teaching allocations to be provided for students with special educational needs for the current school year to the 2012/13 levels. There will therefore not be a reduction in resource teaching time for these pupils over the amount of support provided last year.

Details of the SNA and resource teaching allocations which have been made to schools by the NCSE to date for the 2013/2014 school year are available on the NCSE website www.ncse.ie, which provides details of the SNA and resource teaching allocations for each school on a school by school and per county basis.

In order to meet any late demand for resource teaching support which may have arisen between 15th March, 2013 and the start of the school year, the NCSE requested all schools to submit outstanding applications for resource teaching support to the NCSE by 20th September, 2013. A small number of applications have also been received after 20th September, which are still under consideration. The NCSE intend to notify schools of revised resource teaching allocations in the coming weeks.