Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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305. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with special educational needs who are in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34119/21]

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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306. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of special educational needs for schools in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34120/21]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 305 and 306 together.

My Department continues to prioritise investment in special education, with over €2 Billion due to be spent on special education this year.

For the coming school year there will be over 13,600 Special Education Teachers allocated to mainstream schools, who will support class teachers to address the special educational needs and learning needs of pupils who attend mainstream schools.

This year we are also providing for two new special schools and 269 new special classes.

For the 2021/22 school year we will have a total of 2118 special classes, which is the largest number of special classes that we have ever had, and compares to 548 classes available in 2011.

18,000 Special Needs Assistants will also be available to support the care needs of pupils with special educational needs in our schools.

The Special Education Teachers which are allocated to mainstream schools support the mainstream class teacher by providing additional teaching support for pupils with special educational needs, or additional learning needs, in schools.

DES Circular 007/2019 for primary schools and 008/2019 for post primary schools set out the details of the model for allocating special education teachers to schools.

The Special Education Teaching allocation provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on each school’s educational profile.

The Special Education Teacher allocation, allows schools to provide additional teaching support for all pupils who require such support in their schools and for schools to deploy resources based on each pupil’s individual learning needs.

It gives greater flexibility to schools as to how they can deploy their resources, to take account of the actual learning needs pupils have, as opposed to being guided by a particular diagnosis of disability, and schools are guided as to how they should make such allocation decisions.

Children who need support can have that support provided immediately rather than having to wait for a diagnosis.

Children do not have to be labelled with a particular condition to qualify for extra teaching assistance.

The model gives greater freedom to schools to give extra teaching help to the pupils who most need it, regardless of their diagnosis.

As children who have additional learning needs can now be supported in school regardless of whether they have a diagnosis of a particular special educational need, or not, and the decisions as to which children receive additional support are made at local level.

It is therefore not possible to state definitively how many pupils are receiving additional support in mainstream schools on the grounds that they have some form of additional learning needs or special educational needs

The NCSE research paper ‘A Study on the Prevalence of Special Educational Needs’ (2011) noted that the Growing Up in Ireland analysis, which combined data on children from two sets of key informants (parents and teachers) to generate a new estimate of SEN prevalence as defined in EPSEN Act’s broader definition of SEN, which referred to ‘a restriction in the capacity of a person to participate in and benefit from education on account of an enduring physical, sensory, mental health or learning disability, or any other condition which results in a person learning differently from a person without that condition, pointed to an overall prevalence rate of up to 25 per cent.

As all mainstream schools receive allocations of special education teaching support, all schools are resourced to provide for the education of pupils with special educational needs.

For the 2021/22 school year there will also be a total of 2118 special classes in mainstream schools, providing additional specialised educational services for pupils with more complex special educational needs. This is the largest number of special classes that we have ever had, and compares to 548 classes available in 2011.

For the 2019/20 school year, 10,328 pupils attended special classes, which represents just over 1% of the total pupil population.

There are also 124 special schools which provide specialist educational services for pupils who have the most servere or complex levels of disabilities, or special educational needs.  

For the 2019/20 school year, 8,224 pupils attended special schools, representing less than 1% of the total pupil population.

The remainder of pupils who have additional learning needs or special educational needs attend mainstream schools. 

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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307. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with special educational needs that are currently on reduces timetable in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34121/21]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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It is the policy of my Department that all children, including children with special educational needs should attend school for the full school day.

Only in very limited circumstances, for example, where children are recovering from illness, and are required to be reintegrated to school, should reduced timetables be considered. In such circumstances, this should be part of a transition or reintegration intervention, based on the needs of individual students.

Where a reduced timetable is used, it should be applied proportionately, should have signed parental/guardian consent and should last only as long as is necessary to facilitate a return to school on a full-time basis. 

The Department has consulted with education stakeholders to consider the timing of the introduction of guidelines on reduced timetables in the context of Covid 19 and the current operating environment for schools. There were concerns about issuing guidelines in the current Covid context where the safe and sustainable reopening of schools remains the overriding priority for all stakeholders.

It is my Department’s intention to issue Guidelines to schools on the use of reduced timetables for the next school year

It is intended that the guidelines will include measures by which schools will be required to report on the use of reduced timetables. Until such time as this reporting mechanism is in place, data is not available as to the number of pupils who are currently on reduced timetables.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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308. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with special educational needs who are currently on suspension in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34125/21]

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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309. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with special educational needs who are currently expelled from school in Ireland (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34127/21]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 308 and 309 together.

I wish to advise the Deputy that in accordance with the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000 schools are obliged to report on school attendance, and data on non-attendance in primary and post-primary schools at the aggregated level are collected by Tusla through the Annual Attendance Report (AAR) and, also at the student level through the Student Attendance Report (SAR).

This latest report published presents data for the academic year 2017/18 and is available on Tusla’s website at

www.tusla.ie/uploads/content/Analysis_of_School_Attendance_Data_in_Primary_and_Post-Primary_Schools_2017-2018.pdf

As the information requested is collected and recorded by Tusla, I have referred this question to that agency, for their attention and direct reply to the Deputy.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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310. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with special educational needs are currently not in school in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34128/21]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Ensuring that every child has a suitable school placement is a key objective of this Department. Significant resources are allocated each year to ensure that appropriate supports are available for children with special educational needs.

It is the policy of my Department that all children with Special Educational Needs can have access to an education appropriate to their needs, preferably in school settings through the primary and post primary school network.

Such placements facilitate access to individualised education programmes which may draw from a range of appropriate educational interventions, delivered by fully qualified professional teachers, with the support of Special Needs Assistants and the appropriate school curriculum.

My Department’s policy focuses on ensuring that all students with special educational needs can have access to an education appropriate to meeting their needs and abilities.

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of Special Needs Organisers (SENOs), for the development and delivery and co-ordination of education services to children with Special Educational Needs, including the establishment of special class and special school placements.

In circumstances, where the NCSE confirms that no placement is available for a child with special educational needs, my Department can provide Home Tuition grant funding towards the provision of 20 hours home tuition per week as an interim measure until the NCSE confirms that a placement is available.

It is important to note that Home tuition funding is not an alternative to a school placement, by its nature it is intended to be a short term intervention.

For this reason home tuition will not be available where a school placement has been identified by the NCSE.

Similarly, failure to enrol a child in school will not give rise to eligibility under this scheme.

I have no plans to change this approach.

Where the NCSE have identified an available school placement for a child, the local SENO will continue to be available to engage with the family and the school concerned to ensure that the child's needs are addressed.

The total number of children with special educational needs who are being supported by the Home Tuition scheme on the grounds that they do not currently have a school placement, or an early intervention class placement, is 732.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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311. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of judicial reviews regarding suspension and expulsions of children with special educational in the past three years in Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34147/21]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Section 29 of the Education Act provides for appeals against the decision of a Board of Management of a school to suspend or permanently exclude a student. The decision of the independent appeals committee  may only be challenged by way of a Judicial Review. It is open to either party to an appeal to seek a Judicial Review.

The number of Judicial Reviews of section 29 appeal committee decisions in suspension and expulsion cases involving children with special educational needs in the last 3 years and to date in 2021 is as follows:

2021 - 1 expulsion case

2020 – 2 expulsion cases

2019 - 3 expulsion cases and 1 suspension case

2018 – 0 cases