Holly Cairns (Cork South-West, Social Democrats)
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468. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the current collaboration between the Department of Children, Disability and Equality and her Department in terms of signposting the level of need for assessments of needs and disability services among students and the timely provision of those services; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [2872/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The Assessment of Need (AON) process is provided for under the Disability Act 2005 and is under the remit of the Health Service Executive (HSE).

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is required to assist the HSE in undertaking an educational assessment of the needs of children who have applied to the HSE for an AON. The Department and the NCSE have worked intensively to ensure that the process put in place to support the educational component of the AON fulfils legal obligations and is one that is rooted in existing assessment practices in schools.

The Department is committed to supporting and monitoring the impact of the AON process on schools and will continue to work with the education stakeholders to ensure that schools are supported within this process.

The Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS) was established in June 2024. The expansion of therapy services within the NCSE is expected to build on the achievements and impacts of this element of the School Inclusion Model (SIM) pilot programme, which provided support to 75 schools as part of the pilot.

The ETSS service is designed to build the capacity of teachers (and other school personnel as relevant) to provide as effectively as possible for the needs of students. This will mean that therapists will work in classrooms with teachers to provide, for example, language programmes which have been co-designed by teachers and speech and language therapists.

The ETSS, initially, will comprise of 39 speech and language/occupational therapists embedded into the NCSE regional structure and it the ambition of the department to build this service over time to ensure that schools across the country will be able to access the support of those therapists. They will be supported by 5 existing Behaviour Practitioner posts. The Behaviour Practitioners in the NCSE will support schools to promote engagement and participation for all students using a behavioural frame of reference.

With regard to disability services, the provision of clinical therapy supports to children, including Speech and Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy, is the responsibility of the HSE, through Primary Care or the Children’s Network Disability Teams (CDNT).

Through the Progressing Disability Services Oversight Group, the Department of Education is working with the Department of Health, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth' (DCEDIY) and the HSE to develop and strengthen more coherent structures to enable children and young people to access therapeutic supports, including those who attend special schools.

As a result of this engagement, Phase 1 of the enhanced in-school therapy supports pilot commenced in September 2024, in six schools in the Cork and Dublin areas. An additional ten schools were announced as part of the pilot on 8th November 2024, with phased onboarding of schools to the pilot over the course of the 2024/2025 academic year.

This integrated pilot programme will see the delivery of enhanced in-school therapy supports provided by the HSE’s Children’s Disability Network Teams and will be supported by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE). This pilot supplements existing services being provided through Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNTs).

My Department will continue to engage with DCEDIY and Department of Health on the provision of therapies for children and young people in our education system.