Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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118. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will reverse the decision not to grant home tuition to children with ASD between the age of two and a half and three years old unless it is provided in the home and not in a preschool environment as had previously been the case; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29082/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department's Home Tuition Grant Scheme provides funding towards the provision of early educational intervention for children between 2.5 and 3 years of age with an ASD diagnosis.

Children who receive tuition under the Department’s Home Tuition scheme typically receive this tuition in their home.

The scheme also provides parents with an option to enter into a group arrangement with other parents of children for whom home tuition has been approved. Parents wishing to enter into such an arrangement must notify my Department in advance for approval and providers selected by these parents must comply with additional terms and conditions which reflect the general provision of the scheme. and which apply equally to all such providers.

These terms and conditions include the requirement that eligible children must be over the age of 3.

Notwithstanding this, my Department has facilitated the inclusion of individual children in such settings under the home tuition scheme where requested by parents and with the consent of the providers. The Department has continued to facilitate such requests this year.

There have been no changes to the scheme's eligibility criteria for children between 2.5 and 3 years of age. In addition the formal terms and conditions which apply to both home based tuition and provision under grouped arrangements have not been changed.