Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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194. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the reason the State is failing to accommodate special needs children in preschool year with a special needs assistant, resulting in special needs children not being able to avail of the free preschool year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24332/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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There are a number of measures currently in place in my Department to ensure that the free pre-school year is more accessible to children with special needs. These include an exemption from the upper age limit where a child would benefit from starting primary school at a later age. In addition, children with special needs can apply to have the pre-school year split over two years on a pro-rata basis, for example availing of the programme for 2 days a week in the first year and for 3 days a week in the second year.

On the specific issue raised by the Deputy, the Department of Health has informed my Department that while the Health Service Executive has no statutory obligation to provide assistant supports for children with special needs wishing to avail of the free pre-school year, it does work at local level and in partnership with the relevant disability service providers to address individual needs as they arise. This is done, for example, by funding special pre-schools that cater specifically for children with disabilities. In some limited cases at local level, disability services have also facilitated children with disabilities in some instances to attend mainstream pre-schools by providing assistant supports where possible and subject to resources. The provision of such pre-school assistant supports should not be confused with Special Needs Assistants who are funded by the Department of Education and Skills to support children with special educational needs in primary and post-primary school settings.

Improving access to the pre-school year for children with special needs is a priority for my Department.

The intersectoral work done under the chairmanship of the Office of the Minister for Disability and Mental Health and through the Cross Sectoral Team on children’s disability issues agreed that the best approach to meeting the needs of children with a disability of pre-school age was through mainstream pre-school services, but no agreement was reached on what the model of provision would be, or, who would lead out on developing this.

The Secretary General of my Department has recently agreed with his counterparts in the Departments of Health and Education and Skills that my Department will seek to gain agreement, in a relatively short time-frame, between the three sectors (children, education, health) on the most appropriate, workable model for supports to pre-school children with special needs. This will be followed by very close co-operation between the sectors in defining/developing the model and in making an agreed cross-departmentally supported proposal for the resources required to implement it. The team will use information from recent consultations with parents and providers to inform their work and will conduct further consultation as the tight time-frame allows.

There will be several challenges to agreeing an appropriate and workable model – including reviewing existing resources in the system to determine how they can best meet children’s’ needs, and accessing the additional investment needed. My Department has committed to leading this process and it is my intention that a proposal will be available in time for the Estimates process.