James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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240. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding matters raised in correspondence on special education teaching allocation in a school in Waterford (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8787/25]

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 National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has responsibility for coordinating and advising on the education provision for children with special educational needs.

The Special Education Teaching (SET) Allocation Model is a standardised allocation model that provides schools with additional teaching hours to support the teaching needs of students in mainstream classes.

When the model was introduced, it replaced a diagnosis led model with one based on need. This ensures the allocation supports all children that require a level of additional teaching support.

For 2025/26 school year close to 15,000 special education teachers have been allocated to schools to support these children and young people.

The allocation model uses a variety of statistical data to complete allocations. This data includes, enrolment data, data on educational needs profiles (literacy and numeracy) and data on educational disadvantage. This data is sourced from within the education sector to ensure it is validated and assured. The only external data used is the Pobal HP Deprivation Index which is used by Irish Government departments for identification of disadvantage.

The 2025/26 school year will see almost 86% of schools either increase their allocation of hours or retain their previous allocation. Of schools who will see a reduction this is driven by demographic change in the geographic area and a reduction of enrolments in the school. The vast majority of these schools will see a reduction of under five hours.

However, unique circumstances may arise in schools that may be difficult to reflect in a standardised method. Therefore, any school who has any concerns on their allocation can engage with the NCSE. The NCSE will provide support to schools as required and will examine if the allocation is sufficient to meet the identified needs of all children and young people enrolled.

Where the NCSE identifies the need for additional resources, my department will immediately approve the identified increase so that it is available to the school ahead of the 2025/26 school year.

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.

In relation to the school referred to by the Deputy, I would like to clarify the following in relation to the question asked:

For the school year 2024/25 the SET allocation made to the school was 145 SET hours per week.

The school made an application to my department under the projected enrolment process for mainstream posts.

An additional mainstream post was granted and this automatically includes the school receiving an additional 3 SET hours.

For 2024/25 school year the school’s allocation was 148 SET hours (145 original allocated plus the 3 additional hours)

When the SET allocations for 2025/26 were being developed, the model recommended 147.81 hours when round to the nearest 2.5hrs was 147.5.

As the reduction was less than 1 hour the department allocated the same allocation for 2025/26 of 148hours to ensure that any arrangements that the school had in place for 2024/25 would be able to continue for 2025/26.

I would also like to clarify that a total of 54 schools would have received an allocation based on the same process.

The SET allocation to schools is firstly split into 25 hour blocks which represents one full-time post in a school. Schools may also add Principal Release Time hours and Gaeltacht Education hours to their part-time SET hours to create full-time posts. Remaining part-time hours may be clustered with other schools to create a full-time post. The clustering process is done firstly at school level as schools are best placed to coordinate hours into an agreed timetable in cooperation with neighbouring schools. Following the school-led process, the Department looks to combine any remaining hours into full-time posts so as to retain teachers within their own schools.

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.