Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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687. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide, in tabular form, figures estimates on the number of special needs assistants allocated by county in the years 2011 to 2014 and in 2015 to date. [30324/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that I recently announced that I had secured Government approval for an additional 610 Special Needs Assistant (SNA) posts which may be made available for allocation to schools to support children with special educational needs with assessed care needs.

From the beginning of September, there will be 11,820 whole time equivalent SNA posts available in schools to support children with special educational needs with assessed care needs. This is the highest level of SNA allocation that we have ever had and builds on the increases of 365 additional SNA posts provided for in last year's budget announcement and the 390 additional SNA posts announced in December 2013. In total there has been an increase of 11.7% in SNA posts available for allocation to schools since this Government came to office.

These extra posts will ensure that the Government's policy of ensuring that every child who is assessed as needing SNA support will receive access to such support.

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 SNA support for each school annually taking into account the assessed care needs of children qualifying for SNA support enrolled in the school.

The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support and these criteria by are set out in my Department's Circular 0030/2014. Details of SNA allocations which have been made to schools by the NCSE for the 2012/2013, 2013/14 and 2014/15 school years are available on the NCSE website www.ncse.ieand can be viewed on a per county basis. I will arrange to have the Deputy's question referred to the NCSE for their direct reply in respect of information sought prior to 2012/13.