Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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712. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if he will respond to the call for supports for children in County Donegal with special needs attending the free preschool year, as it has been recently revealed by the Donegal county child care census 2015, that 63% of children with special needs participating in the free preschool year are unsupported by any form of grant assistance or specialist support, the highest concentration in Donegal located in the Glenties and the Inishowen region; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32014/15]

Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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713. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if he will confirm that no specific budget is available to train staff to provide specialised supports for children with special needs attending the free preschool year scheme; if a commitment will be made in budget 2016 to have funding ring-fenced to increase supports for children in the free preschool year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32015/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 712 and 713 together.

The majority of children with special needs are able to access the free pre-school year, provided under the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, in mainstream pre-school services, without the provision of any additional supports. In the region of 67,000, including children with special needs, avail of the free pre-school provision each year.

My Department is committed to ensuring that all children have the opportunity to access and benefit from this free pre-school year and has, in addition to the HSE, made various practical efforts in recent years to support mainstreamed provision for children with special needs. These include: more flexible rules regarding access to the free pre-school year, the provision on a limited ad hoc basis by the HSE of funding towards the cost of pre-school support assistants in some areas, elective modules on special needs in mandatory courses for early years practitioners, and various initiatives by City and County Childcare Committees, HSE/HSE funded services, and by Better Start’s Early Years Specialist Service to support providers who need expert advice and guidance. In addition, the on-going reorganisation of disability therapy services into multi-disciplinary geographic-based teams by the HSE under the Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People Programme and the early intervention and support that reconfigured teams provide is of importance in the context of mainstreaming.

Nevertheless, this Government recognises that co-ordination and provision of appropriate supports for pre-school children with special needs could be improved. Accordingly, when I established the Inter-Departmental Group on Future Investment in Early Years and School Age Care and Education, I included in its terms of reference the need to examine how best to provide for children with special needs within mainstream pre-school settings.

To advance this, the Departments of Children and Youth Affairs, Education and Skills, and Health are working together to develop a new model of supports for pre-school children with special needs. My Department is leading the process, with full and active support from the other two Departments and their respective agencies.

An Inter-Departmental Group comprising representatives from these three Departments, the HSE, Tusla, the National Council for Special Education, the National Disability Authority, Better Start and the Dublin City Childcare Committee has completed its work and is expected to make a cross-departmentally supported proposal for the resources required in time for the Estimates process.