Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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454. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding resource hours (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37734/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that some €1.3 billion will be spent in support of children with Special Educational Needs this year, which represents approximately 15% of my Department's budget

This provision is in line with expenditure in recent years and shows that despite the current economic difficulties, funding for special education has not been cut.

This Government has been resolutely committed to protecting the level of investment being made to support children with special educational needs at a time when there has been a requirement to make expenditure reductions across a range of areas.

It is an area of spending which has been prioritised above most other areas by this Government, despite the enormous pressures on all areas of public spending.

The level of resources being devoted to supporting children with Special Educational Needs has been protected, and in some areas has been increased in 2014, to take into account increased demand and demographic growth.

In December 2013 the Government announced that it was increasing the number of Special Needs Assistants available for allocation to schools, to reflect both demographic growth and increased demand for SNA support.

The provision for SNA support has been increased by 390 posts to 10.965 posts available for allocation.

This Government has also increased the overall number of resource teaching posts available to schools in recent years. Some 480 additional resource teaching posts were provided for the 2012/13 school year and an additional 480 posts have been made available for the 2014/15 year, in order to meet growing demand from schools for low incidence special educational needs support.

No reduction was made to the amount of resource teaching time allocated to schools, per pupil in the 2013/14 school year, and no reduction is being made for the 2014/15 school year.

There are now more additional resource teachers/learning support teachers in our schools than at any time previously.

The General Allocation Model, which allocates over 4,200 Learning Support/Resource Teachers for all primary schools, is also now updated annually, based on the number of mainstream teaching posts in schools in the previous year, and is therefore updated annually to reflect growth in school size.

Whereas I am not in a position to anticipate any future budgetary decisions or considerations, with regard to provision of resource teaching time, I can confirm that this Government will continue to do everything possible to protect the provision of services for children with special educational needs, and where possible to attempt to bring about improvements to services.

Finally, I wish to advise the Deputy that the National Council for Special Education recently published its Report on a Proposed New Model for Allocating Teachers for Students with Special Educational Needs. This report is currently being considered by my Department and will assist my Department in considering how the resource teaching allocations process may be developed or improved for schools in the future.