Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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83. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of special needs assistants working with pupils in mainstream primary schools, mainstream secondary schools, and schools for children with special needs; the number of students they worked with for each of the past five years. [43553/13]

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.

There are 10,575 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) SNA posts available for allocation in the 2013/14 school year which is the same number of posts which were available for allocation for the 2012/13 school year. The NCSE has notified schools of their SNA allocation for 2013/14, based on the number of valid applications received and the extent of the care needs of qualifying children.

The NCSE has published details of all of their allocations for resource teaching and SNA support for the 2013/2014 school year. These details are now available on the NCSE website, www.ncse.ie, and detail the allocations made for each school on a per county basis.

At the outset of the current school year there were 6,269 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) SNA posts allocated in primary schools and 2,092 WTE posts allocated in Post Primary schools. 2,130 posts were allocated to Special Schools to support pupils enrolled in those schools. The NCSE has advised that the initial allocation of SNAs for the current school year is supporting about 22,000 pupils.

Every child who meets the criteria for access to SNA support in the current school year is in receipt of this support. The remaining posts are available for allocation throughout the school year for new assessments of disability, new entrants, or emergency or late applications, in accordance with the terms of the SNA scheme.

The NCSE has advised that the historic information relating to the numbers of children supported by SNAS is not immediately available. I have arranged to have the Deputy's information request forwarded to the NCSE for their attention and direct reply, for provision of available information.