Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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191. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason a person (details supplied) in County Donegal was refused resource hours; if she is aware that parents are paying privately to have their children assessed, when there is no National Educational Psychological Service available in the school, which is the case for a school (details supplied) in County Donegal; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18028/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wish to firstly advise the Deputy that the school in question is currently assigned a National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) psychologist.

In common with many other psychological services, NEPS encourages a staged assessment process, whereby each school takes responsibility for a pupil's initial assessment, educational planning and remedial intervention in consultation with their assigned NEPS psychologist. Only if there is a failure to make reasonable progress in spite of the school's best efforts, will a child be referred for individual psychological assessment. It is the responsibility of the school Principal in the first instance to identify and prioritise pupils for assessment under the process described above.

If a parent has concerns in this regard they should be raised with the school Principal in the first instance who can contact NEPS Regional Office for clarification if necessary.

I wish to advise the Deputy also that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), for allocating resource teaching support to schools to support children with low incidence special educational needs, as defined by my Department's Circular SpEd 02/05.

The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support.

All schools have been asked to apply to the NCSE for resource teaching support for the 2015/16 school year by 18th March, 2015.

The NCSE will consider all applications which have been made by schools, following which allocations will be made to qualifying schools.

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.

In circumstances where a parent or school wishes to make an appeal against a refusal by the NCSE to allocate resource teaching hours to a school on behalf of a child, in accordance with my Departments criteria, they may make an appeal in accordance with the procedures set out by the NCSE. These are available on the NCSEs website at www.ncse.ie.

It should also be noted that all Primary schools have been allocated additional teaching resources to cater for children with high incidence special educational needs through the General Allocation Model of additional teaching supports.

It is a matter for schools to monitor and utilise their allocation of additional teaching support to best support the needs of identified pupils, in accordance with my Department's guidance. The teaching time afforded to each individual pupil is decided and managed by schools, taking into account each child's individual learning needs.