Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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101. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the multidisciplinary teams in schools for children with special needs are working on a full time basis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38980/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Children with special educational needs in schools are supported by classroom teachers, special needs assistants, and through the provision of additional resource teaching support in mainstream schools.

Schools are supported in providing for the educational needs of children with special educational needs by the National Council for Special Education, the National Educational Psychological Services, the Special Educational Support Service, the National Behavioural Support Services and by my Departments Inspectorate. Further supports are also provided to schools by the Visiting Teachers for Children with Visual or Hearing Impairment.

Whereas most resource teacher and S posts are full time in an individual school, some posts are shared between schools, or may be part time posts. In most cases, the services which are provided to schools by supporting bodies or agencies are provided as needs arise in the schools and are therefore provided for a limited period of time to support schools.

Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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102. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount approximately it would cost his Department to provide an extra 300 full time, 22 hour weekly resource teachers annually; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38981/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that the amount approximately it would cost to provide an extra 300 full time resource teachers annually, would be €18 Million for a full years cost.

On 27thOctober, the NCSE announced that following the second round of resource teaching allocation support for the 2016/17 school year, 7430 resource teacher posts have now been allocated to schools.

The current number of resource teacher posts which have been allocated to schools, which is 7430 posts, has increased by 41% since the 2011/12 school year, at which point 5265 posts were allocated.  

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has a statutory role under the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 to provide me with policy advice in relation to matters concerning the education of persons with special educational needs.

The NCSE identified that the current model for allocating resource teachers to schools is potentially inequitable, because access to the range of professional assessments required for the diagnosis of low incident disabilities is not always readily available to those who cannot afford to access them privately. The NCSE has also advised that the current model can lead to unnecessary labelling of children from a young age.

The NCSE has proposed a new resource teaching allocation model which will, when introduced, remove the formal requirement for diagnostic assessment to access additional support and which will provide resources to schools based on school profiles.

Given that the NCSE has recommended the introduction of a new allocation model, it is considered that the best use of any additional resources will be to provide for the introduction of the new model, as opposed to revisiting the allocation basis of the old model.

As part the recent Budget announcements, I announced that following development and piloting over the past number of years, a new model for the allocation of teaching resources for children with special educational needs will be implemented from September 2017. 

An additional €18 million will be provided in 2017 to provide for around 900 resource teacher posts, which represents the period of 2017 from September to the end of the year.

Further details regarding implementation of the new model will be announced in the coming months.