Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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30. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills what steps have been taken to address the shortage of additional need services at a school (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8588/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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As you are aware enabling children with special educational needs to receive an education is a priority for government. The vast majority of children with special education needs attend mainstream classes and are supported to do so by their mainstream teacher and close to 15,000 special education teachers and 12,500 special needs assistants (SNAs).

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has responsibility for coordinating and advising on the education provision for children with special educational needs. Any school who feels it special educational teaching (SET) hours or SNA allocation is insufficient to meet the needs of the students enrolled in its school should contact the NCSE directly and seek a review of this allocation.

With regard to therapy supports, the provision of clinical therapy supports to children is the responsibility of the Health Service Executive (HSE), through Primary Care or the Children’s Network Disability Teams (CDNT).

However, I would like to outline the initiatives my department has taken to better enable children and young people to achieve their full potential. In this regard, my department is working collaboratively with the Department of Health, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality and the HSE to develop and strengthen more coherent structures to enable children and young people to access therapeutic supports.

As a result of this engagement, the enhanced in-school therapy supports pilot commenced on a phased basis in September 2024, in sixteen schools in the Cork, Dublin and Galway. This integrated pilot programme will see the delivery of enhanced in-school occupational and speech and language therapy supports provided by the HSE’s CDNTs and will be supported by the NCSE. A detailed evaluation of the pilot programme will inform the future development of policy in both education and health provision.

Separately, the Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS) was established in June 2024. This service initially, will comprise of 39 speech and language/occupational therapists embedded into the NCSE regional structure and it is the ambition of my department to build this service over time to ensure that schools across the country will be able to access the support of those therapists.

My department and the NCSE are committed to delivering an education system that is of the highest quality and where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential.