Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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53. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding a special needs assistant in respect of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 13; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43162/13]

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 also that there is no automatic system of transfer of resources from one school to another. In considering applications for teaching and SNA supports for individual pupils, the SENOs take account of the pupils' needs and consider the resources available to the school to identify whether additionality is needed or whether the school might reasonably be expected to meet the needs of the pupils from its current level of resources.

Assessment reports carried out by relevant professionals are provided by schools to the SENOs as part of the application process for support. The consideration of these reports is an integral part of determining the extent of supports to be provided for pupils with special educational needs.

The NCSE circular 03/08 clarifies the respective roles and functions of the NCSE and the HSE and their respective personnel in carrying out assessments and sanctioning resources to support children with special educational needs.

All primary and post primary schools have access to psychological assessments either directly through the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS), or through the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA), full details of which are on the Department's website. Where a NEPS psychologist is not assigned to a school, authorities therein may access psychological assessments through SCPA. Under this scheme schools can have an assessment carried out by a member of the panel of private psychologists approved by NEPS, and NEPS will pay the psychologist the fees for this assessment directly. It is the responsibility of the school Principal in the first instance to identify and prioritise pupils for assessment.

I understand a meeting has recently taken place between school management and the psychologist assigned to this school.

It is my understanding that the pupil in question currently has access to SNA support. It is open to schools can contact the NCSE if they have enrolled children who were not considered at the time that the SNA allocations were made to schools, or where they are seeking a revision to the quantum of SNA support which has been allocated to them for the coming school year. In general, a revision to SNA allocations will only be made in circumstances where schools have enrolled new pupils, or where schools can demonstrate that they do not have sufficient SNA posts to cater for the care needs of all of the qualifying children in their school.

All schools have the names and contact details of their local SENO. Parents may also contact their local SENO directly to discuss their child's special educational needs, using the contact details available on www.ncse.ie.