Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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234. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the system for the allocation of hours based on complex needs under the special education teacher allocation; the way that the data for complex needs is sourced by the children's disability network teams, CDNTs; and if there is a central register held by the them in which the number of children with disabilities is held. [62951/22]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I would like to thank the Deputy for the question and would like to advise the following:

The overall Special Education Teacher Allocation to a school is provided to support those students with special educational needs, learning support needs, and additional literacy needs.

This standard allocation is only to support special education needs including those with complex educational needs and it is important to stress that this does not relate to complex care needs. Complex care needs of students are addressed via a separate process – SNA allocation process.

In recognition that a small cohort of the student population many have exceptional special education needs an additional “top-up” allocation is provided to those schools where the HSE Children Disability Network Teams (CDNT) advise that a student is entering junior infants and who has either been assessed or is on a waiting list for assessment (following initial contact) by CDNT.

The data provided by the HSE CDNT is a value of the number of students commencing in junior infants in a school in a given year.

The Complex Needs calculation for each school is as follows:

When the model was introduced the pupils in the school who had resource teaching hours assigned, the school maintained these hours and as the students leave the school these hours are reduced by the hours assigned to those school leavers. Where the relevant HSE CDNT advise that a student with complex educational needs is entering junior infants a value of 3.5hrs is applied to the school SET resource allocation.

It is important to note that due to GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) no data is supplied by the HSE CDNT to the Department of Education or the NCSE that would allow us to identify an individual student.

In the re-profiling exercise undertaken this year to produce SET allocations all data received from the HSE CDNTs in relation to a school was applied to the model without amendment.

The accuracy of the application of the data provided by the HSE CDNT to the model was verified by the Independent Appeals Officer.

Specifically in relation to “the way the data for complex needs is sourced by the children's disability network teams; and if there is a central register held by the CDNTs in which the number of children with disabilities is held”. These matters do not fall with the remit of the Minister for Education and relate to internal processes in the HSE and it would be more appropriate to raise these matters with the Minister for Health and the HSE for response.