Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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655. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason for the delay in having an appointment made for a person (details supplied) in County Cork. [5584/16]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) for allocating Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) to schools to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support. The criteria by which SNA support is allocated to pupils is set out in my Department's Circular 0030/2014.

SNAs are not allocated to individual pupils but to schools, as a school based resource, in the same manner that teachers are allocated to schools. The NCSE allocates a quantum of SNA support for each school, taking into account the care needs of all of the qualifying children enrolled in the school, and on the basis of the assessed care needs of all of the children concerned, rather than solely by reference to a pupil's disability categorisation.

In circumstances where a child has qualified for access to SNA support and a parent feels that their child is not receiving sufficient care support in school, the parent should raise this concern in the first instance with the School Principal or the School Board of Management.

School management authorities have responsibility for the appointment, management and deployment of SNAs in their school and, therefore, have the potential to adjust or moderate the level of support which is being given to a child in the school.