Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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173. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the costs to date associated with the various reports the National Council of Special Education has published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11554/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that Section 20(1)(j) of the Education for Persons with Special Needs Act 2004 sets out that one of the functions of the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is to advise the Minister for Education and Skills in relation to any matter relating to the education of children and others with disabilities.

Section 20(3)(b)(i) of the Act also requires that the NCSE in giving advice to the Minister provide an assessment of the implications of that advice for the resources, including financial resources, available to the State in respect of the provision of education.

In recent years, the NCSE has provided my Department with a number of policy advice papers on:

The Future Role of Special Schools and Classes in Ireland

The Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in Ireland

The Education of Children with Challenging Behaviour arising from Severe Emotional Behavioural Disorders

Supporting Students with Special Educational Needs in Schools

Delivery for Students with Special Educational Needs: A proposed new model for allocating teaching resources for Students with Special Educational Needs.

Where costs were identified by the NCSE in relation to the estimated cost of implementing the recommendations contained in the NCSE policy advice papers, these costs have been identified and detailed in the NCSE reports.

Details of these reports can be found at .

In total, the reports contain 99 recommendations with total estimated identified costs of €18.8M.

In estimating the costs required to implement recommendations contained in these reports, the NCSE considers what the full cost of implementing these recommendations would be, in an individual context, if no other developments were taking place. The costings do not therefore necessarily have regard to other developments which may have been underway or planned increases in expenditure in particular policy areas.

As such, it is not possible to desegregate the cost expenditure associated with each particular policy advice recommendation, from the totality of expenditure for that particular policy area, for example, such as expenditure for teacher training, the provision of additional resource teaching support, or the establishment of new special classes.

Consideration of the recommendations contained in the NCSE reports is ongoing and the continued implementation of the recommendations will take place in the context of available resources. It will also take account of the very significant levels of increased expenditure in the area of special educational needs provision in recent years.

Funding for special education provision in 2016 will amount to some €1.4 billion, which is equivalent to approximately 17% of the gross overall current allocation for education and training. It has increased by 10% in the past two years.

This funding provides for a range of supports and services including additional learning and resource teaching support, access to care support, special transport arrangements, building adaptations, enhanced capitation, funding for the purchase of specialised equipment and the services of the National Educational Psychological Service.

The funding also provides for enhanced levels of capitation in Special Schools and Special Classes and additional teacher training. It also provides for Home Tuition support for pupils with special educational needs who are awaiting a school placement.

This year, 12,040 Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) are available for allocation to primary and secondary schools, to the end of the 2015/16 school year, which is an increase of almost 14% in the number of posts available since 2011.

There are currently over 11,800 learning support and Resource Teacher posts in mainstream primary and post primary schools providing additional teaching support to pupils with special educational needs.

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has allocated 6,832 Resource Teaching posts to mainstream schools this year, which is an increase of 29% over the numbers allocated since 2011.

In addition, over 150 new Special Classes have been opened for the 2015/16 school year, which means there are now over 1,000 special classes in place, compared to 548 special classes in 2011.

125 special schools also provided specialist education for those pupils who need it.

The combination of supports provided in mainstream schools along with the increased special school and special class provision, means that school places are available for all children with special educational needs, regardless of their level of need.

As committed to in the Programme for a Partnership Government, I plan to examine the adequacy of the present policies and provision, and their scope for improvement, particularly in relation to speech and language difficulties and early intervention. In doing so, I will also take into account the recommendations contained in the NCSE policy advice papers.