Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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448. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to outline the extent to which he expects the special needs teaching request to be met at primary and second level throughout the country in the next 12 months at mainstream and special schools, in line with requirements as set out by school authorities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41580/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that funding for special education provision in 2016 amounted to some €1.5 billion, which was equivalent to over 17% of the gross overall allocation for education and training and an increase of 10% in spending in the previous two years.

This funding provided for a range of supports and services including additional learning and resource teaching support, access to SNA support, special transport arrangements, building adaptations, enhanced capitation in special schools and special classes, specialised equipment, additional teacher training and the services of the National Educational Psychological Service.

12,900 Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) were available for allocation to schools to the end of 2016, which represents an increase of 23% over the numbers allocated in 2011.

I recently announced that an additional 115 SNA posts will be provided for allocation from January to June 2017 to bring the total number of SNAs available for allocation to schools to 13,015.

There are also over 12,500 Learning Support and Resource Teacher posts in mainstream primary and post primary schools for the 2016/2017 school year. The NCSE has allocated 7430 resource teacher posts to schools for the 2016/17 school year; this represents an increase of 41% in the number of resource teachers which have been allocated since the 2011/12 school year, at which point 5265 posts were allocated.  In addition, over 5000 learning support posts are allocated to schools under the General Allocation Model for primary schools and Learning Support allocations for post primary schools. I also recently announced that approximately 900 additional resource teacher posts will be provided for in the 2017/2018 school year in order to introduce a new model for allocating resource teachers to schools.

There are over 1,150 Special Classes in place in comparison to 548 in 2011, with approximately 150 new classes having been made available for the current school year, 2016/17.

125 special schools also provide specialist education for those pupils who need it, from infants to eighteen years of age.

The combination of supports, and the extent of resources provided, means that educational provision can continue to be for all children with special educational needs, regardless of their level of need, and will ensure that their needs can continue to met throughout the country in the next twelve months, at both mainstream and special school level.