Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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249. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children who avail of home tuition by county in tabular form. [22715/18]

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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250. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children who have a diagnosis of ASD and avail of home tuition by county in tabular form. [22716/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 249 and 250 together.

The purpose of the Home Tuition Grant Scheme is to provide funding towards the provision of a compensatory educational service for

1. Early educational intervention for children with autism who meet the schemes eligibility criteria

2. Children with special educational needs, including autism, seeking an educational placement in a recognised school 

3. Students, enrolled in schools, with significant medical conditions which has caused, and is likely to continue to cause, major disruption to their attendance at school.

The preferred approach is that children are educated in school settings where children may have access to fully qualified teachers, individualised education programmes, special needs assistants, school curriculum with the option, where possible and appropriate, of full or partial integration and interaction with other pupils.

Accordingly, Home Tuition is provided as an interim measure only for children for whom a placement in a recognised school is not available and should not be regarded as an optional alternative to a school placement. 

Each of the strands of the scheme prescribe the hours available for allocation. For children with Autism aged from 2.5 years to 3 years the number of tuition hours available is 10. From 3 years, for children with Autism for whom school placements are not available, the number of available tuition hours is 20 per week.

For children with special educational needs over 4 years for whom school placements are not available, the number of available tuition hours is 20 per week.

For children with medical conditions the hours granted are reflective of the time the student has been absent from school which are set out in the annual Home Tuition Circular.

Statistics as requested by the Deputy in relation to the 2016/17 school year are attached. Statistics for the 2017/18 school year are will not be finalised until the end of June 2018.