Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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286. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to outline his plans to increase the number of public preschools that can adequately cater for children with autism spectrum disorder. [12625/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department provides for a range of placement options and supports for schools which have enrolled pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in order to ensure that, wherever a child is enrolled, they will have access to an appropriate education.

Parents can choose to enrol children with autism in an early intervention class from the age of three and where such a placement is not available home tuition may be approved.

The Deputy will also be aware that the role of the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is to make appropriate arrangements to establish special classes in schools, including early intervention classes for children with autism, in various geographical areas as required. Progress in developing this network has been significant and in addition to the special school placements there are over 1,000 special classes throughout the country at primary and post primary level, of which 762 are for children with Autism. This includes 116 early intervention classes.

A full list of special classes is available on the NCSEs website www.ncse.ie.

In November 2015, a new model for supporting children with a disability to access the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme was launched. The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is a cross-Government initiative, led by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, and involving the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Skills and others.

The model will deliver seven levels of progressive support, moving from the universal to the targeted, to enable the full inclusion and meaningful participation of children with disabilities in the ECCE programme.

My Department has recently received the NCSE's policy advice on supporting students with ASD. My officials will consider and report to me on any recommendations which relate to the issues raised by the Deputy.

Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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287. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to reverse the 15% cut to the special needs allocation in schools which was implemented across the board a number of years ago; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12731/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that spending on provision for children with Special Educational Needs has been prioritised in recent years, despite the enormous pressures on all public spending.

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.

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, which was 5265 posts.

A total of 7452 resource teaching posts is available to the NCSE to allocate to schools for the coming 2016/17 school year, which is an increase of over 600 posts on the current years allocation, and an increase of 41% over the numbers allocated since 2011, which was 5265 posts.

The Deputy will be aware that the NCSE has a statutory role under the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs Act to provide me with policy advice in relation to matters concerning the education of persons with special educational needs.

The NCSE has proposed a new resource teaching allocation model for schools and a pilot of the model is taking place across a number of schools in advance of implementation in the school system generally.

The pilot has been developed in order to test the model and to allow for the practical effect of the application of the new model in the 47 pilot schools to be evaluated.

A review of the pilot has now commenced. This will also allow us to take into account the learning experiences of schools, principals, pupils and the views of parents over the course of the pilot.

On conclusion of the review a decision will be taken on the timeframe for the full implementation of the proposed new allocation model.

As committed to in the Programme for a Partnership Government, I also 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.