Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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225. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the pilot speech and language units to be set up in schools by his Department in conjunction with the HSE will provide such a unit in the Connemara Gaeltacht for children that come from the Gaeltacht area and operate through the Irish language; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28015/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I recently announced that a demonstration project to provide in-school and pre-school therapy services will be introduced for the 2018/19 school year.

The project will be managed and co-ordinated by the National Council for Special Education.

The model has been developed by the Departments of Education, Children and Youth Affairs, Health, and the Health Service Executive, and is part of the Government’s overall aim to help every child to fulfil their full potential.

The purpose of the project is to test a model of tailored therapeutic supports that allows for early intervention in terms of providing speech and language and occupational therapy within ‘educational settings’. This innovative pilot will complement existing HSE funded provision of essential therapy services.

The project is taking place in Community Healthcare Organisation (CHO) 7 Region of South West Dublin, Kildare and West Wicklow.

This region has been selected to ensure that the pre-school and in-school therapy model can be tested in both urban and rural locations and with a suitable mix of various types of schools and pre-schools.

The schools selected will therefore be from this region, which means that, unfortunately, schools from the Connemara Gaeltacht region cannot be included.

I can advise, however, that a number of schools from the CHO 7 region which teach through the medium of Irish will be included.

76 schools, including a representative sample of primary, post primary, and special schools will take part in the project.

This will include:

- Schools with significant levels of educational disadvantage.

- A mixture of urban, large, and small schools.

- Schools with high levels of support needs as identified under the new special education teaching allocation model.

- Mainstream schools which have special classes

- Special schools with significant levels of therapy support needs.

- Schools of various types including Irish medium schools.

Of the 76 schools which will participate, 3 of these schools are Irish medium schools, and 1 school teaches through the mediums of both English and Irish.

Pre-school settings associated with primary schools participating in the project are being included in order to provide for therapy interventions to be made at the earliest possible time and to create linkages between pre-school and primary school provision.

The project aims to develop a more cohesive, collaborative approach to delivering supports to children by allowing therapists and educational professionals to work together in schools.