Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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114. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will expedite the appointment of a special needs assistant for a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21291/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) are provided specifically to assist recognised schools to cater for pupils with disabilities, who have additional and significant care needs, in an educational context and where the nature of these care needs have been outlined in medical and other professional reports as being so significant that a pupil will require additional adult assistance in order to be able to attend school and to participate in education

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE), which is an independent statutory agency, is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) for allocating a quantum of Special Needs Assistant (SNA) support for each school annually taking into account the assessed care needs of children qualifying for SNA support enrolled in the school.

The NCSE operates within my Department's criteria in allocating such support.  The criteria by which SNA support is allocated to pupils is set out in my Department's Circular 0030/2014.

In considering applications for SNA supports for individual pupils, the SENOs take account of the pupils' needs and consider the resources available to the school to identify whether additionality is needed or whether the school might reasonably be expected to meet the needs of the pupils from its current level of resources. SNAs are not allocated to individual children but to schools as a school based resource.

Once allocated, the deployment of SNAs within schools is then a matter for the individual Principal/Board of Management.  SNAs should be deployed by the school in a manner which best meets the care support requirements of the children enrolled in the school for whom SNA support has been allocated.  It is a matter for schools to allocate support as required, and on the basis of individual need, which allows schools flexibility in how the SNA support is utilised.

As the question to which the Deputy refers relates to an individual child, the matter has been referred to the NCSE for direct reply.