Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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170. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when proposals regarding nursing support for schools will be put in place in view of the advice given to him by the NCSE in early 2017 that proposals needed to be developed before a crisis develops within a school. [29022/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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In September 2016 I requested the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to lead a comprehensive review of the Special Needs Assistant (SNA) Scheme to identify and recommend how, in the future, the additional care needs of students, over and above those needs that could be reasonably expected to be managed by teaching staff, should be met and to identify and recommend the most appropriate form of support options to provide better outcomes for students with Special Educational Needs who have additional care needs.

In May 2017 the NCSE brought forward a progress report with a number of recommendations which were urgent, the first related to the need to set up a separate review group to identify options for an alternate and improved model for providing care supports and the second, proposed a separate review of provision for children with complex medical needs.

Separate working groups undertook that work over the months since the NCSE’s recommendations and reports of those working groups have been finalised.

The full report of the SNA Comprehensive Review, informed by the Report from the Working Group to consider an alternative model of SNA allocation and the Working Group on Nursing Supports for students with complex medical needs was noted by Government on 29 May 2018 and published by the NCSE on 30 May 2018.

My Department, in consultation with the Departments of Health and Public Expenditure and Reform are currently working on the development of the Implementation Plan and the governance and accountability framework, and detailed costings of proposals with a view to bringing this to Government in the coming months.