Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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125. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will review the case of a person (details supplied) who requires a special needs assistant, SNA; and the process for accessing an SNA for preschool children. [32554/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Early Start centres funded by my Department are staffed by primary school teachers and a childcare assistant also works with each group. This teacher-led staffing arrangement and comparatively favourable staff to child ratio is intended to support a range of special educational needs associated with concentrated disadvantage. However, no S allocation is provided until the child is enrolled in junior infants.

The Special Education Support Service (SESS), also provides access to supports and teacher training that will help teachers in Early Start centres to support students with special educational needs.

In circumstances where a child enrols to a pre-school service other than an Early Start unit, a new Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) programme of supports is in place to support children who have needs in those settings. AIM is a child-centred model, involving seven levels of progressive support, moving from the universal to the targeted, depending on the needs of the child and the pre-school. It is available only to pre-schools funded under the ECCE scheme, which is the remit of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. The supports include:

A new Inclusion Charter for the Early Years sector, alongside updated and strengthened Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Guidelines for Early Childhood Care and Education. A new higher education programme for early years practitioners (LINC) which will commence from September 2016. A new national specialist service which is based in the Better Start National Early Years Quality Development Service will provide expert advice, mentoring and support to pre-school providers from a team of 50 specialists in early years care and education for children with disabilities.

A new national scheme will provide specialised equipment, appliances and minor alterations which are necessary to support a child's participation in the ECCE programme. A new national scheme will also provide additional capitation to pre-school providers where this is critical to fund extra support in the classroom and enable a child's participation in pre-school. It is estimated that only 1 to 1.5% of children in pre-school will require, and therefore be eligible for, this scheme of additional capitation.

Details of the supports which will be available under AIM can be found at www.preschoolaccess.ie which contains comprehensive information on the access and inclusion model and on how to apply for the new schemes and supports.