Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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502. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the areas the resources are coming from to fund the pilot scheme that is bringing speech and language therapists and occupational therapists into schools and preschools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [53714/18]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The Programme for a Partnership Government 2016 committed that a new in-school speech and language therapy service would be established to support young children as part of a more integrated support system. The demonstration project is developing and evaluating a model for the delivery of in-school and early years therapy support (both speech and language therapy and also occupational therapy), in a defined regional area (HSE CHO 7), across 75 schools and 75 early learning and care settings in conjunction with the Health Service Executive. The support provided by the project supplements and does not replace existing and/or planned additional or new HSE therapy services. Any existing HSE provision which is provided in pilot schools, or to pupils who attend the pilot schools, remains in place and is not being withdrawn during the project.

Budget 2018 provided an additional €2 million to the Department of Education/National Council for Special Education in 2018 to introduce a demonstration project for an in-school speech and language therapy service which is taking place over the course of the 2018/2019 school year. DES/NCSE funding for 2019 will be agreed as part of the 2019 estimates process.

The pilot also seeks to focus on early intervention in order to support the greater inclusion of children with special educational needs in early education settings. Additional funding of €250,000 was allocated to the project by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) in 2018 through the Dormant Accounts Fund. This funding is to allow the pilot to include early learning and care settings. Funding of up to €500,000 will be provided by DCYA in 2019 again from the Dormant Accounts Fund.