Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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19. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if an application for a special needs assistant will be considered in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Limerick; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43746/13]

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 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. The NCSE published details of all of their allocations for resource teaching and SNA support for the 2013/2014 school year in June. 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. The NCSE subsequently requested all schools to submit outstanding applications for resource teaching and SNA support to the NCSE by 20th September, 2013. These applications are being processed by the NCSE.

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. 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.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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20. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the change in criteria for allocating resource teachers; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that these changes have resulted in resource teachers being split between schools and spending considerable time travelling from place to place instead of working. [43756/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Shared full-time posts and travel between schools is a long standing feature of the primary system. There were a plethora of long-standing clustering arrangements in place which were not the most practical, efficient or cost effective way to allocate resources. In September 2012 new arrangements were introduced designed to address the limitations of the previous arrangements.Under the reforms to the teacher allocation process, schools were empowered to cluster and arrange their General Allocation Model resources in a manner that best suits their local needs, including in a manner that reduces travel between schools. This school led process has resulted in over 97% of the overall GAM/EAL allocation being in full-time stand-alone or shared posts.

The new arrangements relating to resource hours for individual pupils involved the allocation of a network of permanent posts in base schools and again are designed to make the system work more smoothly at school level. 85% of all NCSE approved resource teaching hours in the 2012/13 school year were allocated to schools that had resource base posts.

The staffing arrangements for the current school year 2013/14 are outlined in Circular 0013/2013 which is available on the Department website. Schools that have complied with the arrangements outlined in the circular will be given some discretion to operate, where possible, their own temporary local arrangements in relation to the day to day work arrangements of teachers in full-time shared posts. These arrangements are aimed at minimising any time lost in travelling between schools.