Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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1258. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her position on the report completed by the National Disability Authority into the practice of the assessment of need under the Disability Act 2005 which was submitted by the NDA for consideration by her Department. [33271/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The report to which the Deputy refers was submitted to my Department in 2012. The main findings of this report relating to the assessment of children with special needs were under consideration by my Department, Department of Health and the Health Service Executive at that time.

As a consequence of this consideration, the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) were requested to provide policy advice on how the education system can best support children with special educational needs. The NCSE published its Policy Advice on Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs on 17 May, 2013.

This is a very significant report which is based on a review of best practice in both national and international research and follows a wide process of consultation with children with Special Educational Needs, parents, representative groups, educational partners, voluntary bodies and advocacy groups, including the National Disability Authority.

The main recommendaitons contained in the NCSE policy advice concur with the NDA report. The NCSE report concludes that diagnosis should not be a prerequisite or determinant for the allocation of additional resources for a child or young person with special educational needs which should instead be based on the needs of the child, irrespective of category of disability. Instead, greater use should be made of school - based data and school performance in decision-making related to resource allocation.

One of the principal recommendations of the policy advice is that a new model should be developed for the allocation of additional teaching resources to mainstream schools, based on the profiled need of each school, which will ensure that a more equitable resource allocation system will be in place for students, which will be based on their educational needs as opposed to being based primarily on a diagnosis of disability.

The NCSE published its Report on a Proposed New Model for Allocating Teachers for Students with Special Educational Needs on 18 June 2014.

The report recommends that all children should be allocated additional resources in line with their level of need, rather than by disability category and a new allocation model should be developed, based on a schools educational profile, while also providing a baseline allocation to every mainstream school in order to support inclusion.

To assist with the process of considering the report recommendations, my Department has begun to gather information required to develop the proposed new model. This will review how the proposed model will impact on schools. There will also be full and comprehensive consultation with stakeholders and education partners, including the parents of special needs children.