Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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505. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills in view of the glowing report the Government has given itself in its spring economic statement whether she will immediately reverse the 15% cut in resource teaching hours for students with special education needs that she imposed in 2012; if she will restore resource teaching hours for students with special education needs to the levels pertaining in 2010, which are the levels recommended by the report of the special education review committee; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17759/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that some €1.37 billion will be spent in support of children with Special Educational Needs this year, which represents approximately 15% of my Department's budget.

This has provided for the allocation of over 11,000 resource and learning support teaching posts which will be the highest level of resource teaching allocations that we have ever had, and will ensure that children with special educational needs can continue to participate in education and be supported in a manner appropriate to their needs.

This Government has significantly increased the overall number of resource teaching posts available to schools in recent years.

Some 480 additional resource teaching posts were provided for the 2014/15 school year and an additional 480 posts have been made available for the 2015/16 year, in order to meet growing demand from schools for low incidence special educational needs support.

The number of Resource Teaching/Learning Support Teachers in mainstream schools is over 11,000 at the moment, which is more than at any time previously. This can be compared with 10,305 posts for the 2012/13 school year and 9,950 posts for the 2011/12 year.

There are therefore 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.

The Deputy will be aware that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has recommended the development of a new model for delivering teaching resources to schools to support students with special needs.

Through consultations, there was a broad welcome for the proposed new model from Parents, disability groups, schools and stakeholders. However, there has not been sufficient time to address all of the concerns which have been raised in advance of the 2015 school year.

My Department is, however, continuing to develop the new allocation model for schools and is currently working to devise a pilot of the new model. Issues regarding any adjustments to the existing allocation process will therefore be considered in the context of the development of a new allocation model.