Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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368. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the financial supports available for schools to assist students with special needs; if supports are available for materials, adaptations, etc; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35221/15]

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 provides for a range of supports and services including additional learning and resource teaching support, Special Needs Assistant support, special transport arrangements, building adaptations, enhanced capitation, funding for the purchase of specialised equipment, services of the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS), enhanced levels of capitation in Special schools and Special Classes and additional teacher training.

The policy of my Department is that children with special educational needs should be included where possible and appropriate in mainstream placements with additional supports provided. In circumstances where children with special educational need require more specialised interventions, special school or special class places are also available.

A range of supports have been provided for schools which have enrolled pupils with special educational needs in order to ensure that, wherever a child is enrolled, they will have access to an appropriate education.

We now have a higher level of Resource Teaching and SNA support than ever before.

I recently announced that an additional 610 Special Needs Assistant posts are being provided for this year. This will ensure that every child with an assessed need has access to SNA support, in keeping with the Government's commitment in this regard.

I also announced provision for an additional 480 Resource Teachers, to take into account increased demand and demographic growth and to ensure that children can continue to have access to additional supports in school.

In addition, the NCSE has established over 150 new Special Classes in the 2015/16 school year, which means there are now over 1,000 special classes attached to mainstream schools catering for children with special educational needs.

This Government's continued investment in education will ensure that children with special educational needs can continue to participate in education and be supported in a manner appropriate to their needs. We have been resolutely committed to protecting, and in some instances increasing, the level of investment being made to support children with special educational needs at a time when there has been a requirement to make expenditure reductions across a range of areas. It is an area of spending which has been prioritised above most other areas by this Government, despite the enormous pressures on all areas of public spending.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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369. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware that special needs students who require the use of memory sticks and universal serial bus memory sticks to complete State examinations are charged for the costs of these; her plans to eliminate this charge; if she has discussed the issue with the State Examinations Commission; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35222/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The State Examinations Commission has statutory responsibility for operational matters relating to the certificate examinations.

The State Examinations Commission operates a scheme of Reasonable Accommodations in the Certificate examinations. Full details of the scheme are available for downloading from their website:

www.examinations.ie/candidates/reasonableaccommodations.

In view of this I have forwarded your query to the State Examinations Commission for direct reply to you.