Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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636. To ask the Minister for Health if his attention has been drawn to the fact that a school (details supplied) has been unable to retain its full complement of full-time teaching staff and has lost its OT and SLT as a result of challenging work conditions; if he will investigate this matter and seek to ensure the filling of all existing posts and allow for an OT, an SLT and a psychologist to make the school sustainable; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36659/17]

Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) makes allocations for Teachers and Special Needs Assistants to special schools each year. In doing so, they take into account the number of pupils enrolled to the school and the care needs of the pupils attending the school, in accordance with Department of Education and Skills allocation criteria. The number of special school teaching posts which will be allocated to Benincasa Special School by the NCSE for the coming 2017/18 school year will be 8 teachers and 1 Administrative Principal. The number of Special Needs Assistant posts (SNAs) which will be allocated to the school for coming 2017/18 school year to support the care needs of pupils will be 15 SNAs. This is the same number of teaching and SNA posts which were allocated to the school during the current 2016/17 school year. There has therefore been no reduction to the number of SNA or special school teaching posts being allocated to the school by the NCSE.

As the remainder of the Deputy's relates to a service matter I have arranged for the question to be referred to the Health Service Executive (HSE) for direct reply.