Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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241. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding the provision of resource hours in respect of a person (details supplied) in school in County Cork; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26591/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The National Council for Special Education (NCSE), which is an independent statutory agency, is responsible, through its network of locally based Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) for the allocation of Special Educational needs supports, including Low Incidence Teaching Hours (LITH) support to schools for students with special educational needs (SEN) arising from a disability. 

Responsibility for deciding on the quantum of special educational needs supports and resources to be allocated to schools to support individual pupils with special educational needs, rests with the NCSE.

Additional teaching resources are allocated to recognized primary and post-primary schools for the support of individual students with complex and enduring special educational needs and who have been assessed as having a low incidence disability.

Each year the NCSE allocates Low Incidence Resource Teacher posts to schools to support children with a diagnosis of a disability and an assessed level of need, as set out in Circular Sp Ed 02/05.

Where a school wishes to appeal the resource teaching support allocation which has been made to them, they may do so through the NCSE appeal process, details of which are set out at www.ncse.ie. The option to invoke the NCSE appeals process is open to the school attended by the child in question. All schools have the contact details of their local SENO, while parents may also contact their local SENO directly to discuss their child's special educational needs, using the contact details available on the NCSE website.

An application for LITH was received by the NCSE on the 29^thFebruary which did not meet my Department’s criteria for support; the school was informed on 22^ndMarch.  Further information was submitted with another application after the deadline date for Round 1 allocations had passed. 

A new application with reports was received by the SENO on the 20^thSeptember, the deadline date for receipt of applications for Round 2 LITH allocations. This application remains under consideration. The NCSE intends to publish 2^ndround LITH allocations for all schools in mid-October.