Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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534. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of special needs assistants who have been made redundant in each year since 2008; the number of special needs assistants employed during each of those years; the number of children each of those SNAs was working with; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37087/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, 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 criteria in allocating such support. The criteria by which SNA support is allocated to pupils is set out in my Department's Circular 0030/2014. A school by school breakdown of current SNA allocations for the 2014/15 school year is available at www.ncse.ie.

It should be noted that where individual SNAs are made redundant due to the fact that some schools may have received a reduced SNA allocation because a pupil with special needs has left the school, or because pupils have declining care needs as they grow older, this should not be represented as a cut. Where such posts are freed up they are then allocated to other schools who may have enrolled new pupils with special educational care needs. Most redundancies or reductions in SNA support are balanced by new allocations elsewhere. Details on the number of SNAs who received a redundancy payment for the years 2008 to date is contained in the attached document. These figures include both full redundancy payments and compensation for loss of hours ('partial redundancies').

The specific information requested by the Deputy in relation to the number of SNAs employed from 2008 to present is set out in the attached document.

I will arrange for the question to be forwarded to the NCSE for their attention and direct reply to the Deputy in respect of information regarding the number of pupils supported by SNAs from 2008 onward.

Part A: Number of Special Needs Assistants as provided by the NCSE