James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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692. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to examine a staffing issue in a preschool for children (details supplied) with additional needs; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38643/23]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Purpose of the Home Tuition Grant Scheme is to provide a compensatory educational service for children who, for a number of reasons, are unable to attend school. The scheme also provides a compensatory educational service for children with special educational needs seeking an educational placement for whom such a placement is not available. Likewise, provision is made for early educational intervention for children aged from 2.5 years to 3 years with autism.

Home Tuition is provided as an interim measure only for children for whom a placement in a recognised school is sought but is not available and should not be regarded as an optional alternative to a school placement. Ensuring that every child with special educational needs gets a suitable education is a priority for the Department of Education.

Where parents of children, for whom home tuition has been approved, have sought alternative measures to be put in place for the tuition, my Department has an arrangement with certain private pre-school providers to provide group tuition to children in a class type setting. Each pre-school provider is selected by the parents. JONIX is one such pre-school provider.

In recognition of the demand for group arrangements for Home Tuition, my Department now advises all parents of eligible children of the option to enter into a group arrangement with other parents of children for whom home tuition has been sanctioned. My Department has no contract with these pre-school providers. The contract is essentially between the parents and the relevant provider. My Department does not provide capital funding to private pre-school providers nor does my Department have any role in providing staff to these facilities.

Nonetheless, my Department does state in the terms and conditions issued to pre-school providers the following:

“The facility will operate at least 1 class on the basis of 6 children per class with 1 qualified teacher and 3 assistants who must be registered and vetted with the Teaching Council of Ireland. A pro-rata reduction will be applied both in terms of the number of tutors/assistants and the payments where the class is not operating at full capacity. In this regard, every effort should be made to have classes operating with the full complement of both students and registered tutors/assistants. The minimum number of children required to operate a class is 3.”

Consent of the parent/guardian of the eligible child must be provided to allow the child attend the facility and to allow the facility to receive the payments which would normally paid to the parent under the Scheme. These arrangements allow parents to forego the home based provision in favour of the provision in a classroom setting which is supported by a direct payment facility.

Parents wishing to enter into such an arrangement must notify my Department in advance for approval. Funding is provided to these pre-school providers on the basis that they abide by the rules established by the Special Education Section of the Department of Education, as set out in Circular 0024/2022 which can be found here at www.gov.ie/en/circular/67f37-home-tuition-grant-scheme-20232024-special-education-component/.

To date no application for home tuition has been received for the child referenced by the Deputy for the 2023/24 Home Tuition Grant Scheme.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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693. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware of the delay in opening a new ASD unit in a school (details supplied) whereby the unit is not opening in time for the start of the school year; the reason these delays in construction have occurred; the measures that are in place to ensure the new unit opens on the new date of 18 September 2023 as planned; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38644/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy is aware, my Department issued approval under the Additional School Accommodation scheme for provision of two special education needs classes. The project is devolved to the school authority and is being delivered under the Department’s SEN Reconfiguration and Modular Accommodation programme.

This programme provides project management supports to enable the accommodation to be provided as quickly as possible and helps to ease the administrative workload for individual schools in relation to the management and delivery of the project. This entails the use of the Department's frameworks for the design and construction of the project which mitigates procurement and other risks while expediting delivery.

The overall construction sector environment is nevertheless challenging. The Department and the Project Management company are doing everything possible to ensure that the project is delivered as quickly as possible. My Department is fully aware of the urgency in respect of this important project and will work closely with the school authority and its project manager in order to ensure the project is completed as soon as possible and that the school is updated directly on all progress and timelines.