Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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85. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding the provision of a special needs assistant for a person (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39241/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), which is an independent statutory agency, is responsible, through its network of Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), for processing applications from schools for special educational needs supports, including S support. 

The NCSE allocates S support to schools in accordance with the criteria set out in my Department's Circular 0030/2014, which is available on my Department's website at www.education.ie in order that students who have care needs can access S support as and when it is needed.

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

It should be noted that S allocations are not made to individual children, but are made to schools to support the care needs of children with assessed special educational needs in the school.

Where schools wish to make applications for S support for newly enrolled or assessed pupils who have care needs they may submit such applications to the NCSE.

Where a school wishes to appeal the S 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 in question.

All schools have the contact details of their local SENO.  Contact details are also available on the NCSE website.  The local SENO is also available to discuss any concerns that parents have about the present or future educational needs of their child.

As the question raised by the Deputy relates to an application for S support for an individual child, I have arranged for this question to be forwarded to the NCSE for direct reply to the Deputy.