Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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1077. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills regarding pupils with a diagnosis of autism who have been granted additional supports in schools, the interim measures her Department will support between now and 2027 to ensure pupils have daily access to a qualified SLT in a school (details supplied); the services or pilots available to these pupils this coming term; the named point of contact in the NCSE to confirm, and if necessary, escalate, pupil’s inclusion in any in-school therapy scheme. [41721/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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While the provision of clinical therapy supports to children is the responsibility of the Health Service Executive (HSE), my department is working 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 across both health and education.

Students with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or Speech Sound Disorder (SSD) have access to speech therapy services either through the speech and language therapy services provided in special class settings by the HSE, or through the HSE’s primary care service.

For the 2025/26 school year there will be 64 special classes nationwide for children with a DLD or SSD. As the HSE provide speech and language therapy to students in these classes the opening and retention of such classes is contingent on the availability of HSE resources. For this reason, close engagement and coordination occurs among stakeholders at a local level.

Importantly, students with specific speech and language difficulties that are not enrolled in a special class may qualify for additional teaching support under the school's special education teaching support provision. 15,000 special education teachers have been provided to enable schools to achieve this. In practical terms, this means schools get a substantial additional teaching allocation to support children with special education needs who are in mainstream classes.

It is important to me and this Government that we build on the initiatives recently introduced to ensure that no matter where a child is enrolled, they have access to the required supports to enable them to achieve their educational goals.

As you are aware, the Educational Therapy Support Service (ETSS) was established in June 2024 within the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) and provides two strands of support, Regional Therapy and Sustained In-School Therapy to both mainstream and special schools.

After its establishment in 2024, the NCSE invited all schools in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow to apply for two years of Sustained In-school Therapy Support, where they would have a Speech and Language Therapist and Occupational Therapist working with their school for two academic years. A robust prioritisation process ensued and initially 22 schools have been prioritised for NCSE Sustained In-school Support for 2024-2026.

Having engaged with colleagues in the NCSE, my understanding is the school referred to by the Deputy did not apply for this support at the time. However, teachers in the school are eligible to apply for regional therapy seminars with follow up support this year.

In addition the NCSE provide supports to schools through their Autism Advisor service. Schools can apply to access this support through the following link, which will go live in early August: Teacher Professional Learning – National Council for Special Education – Working to deliver a better special education service.

To note the Regional Therapy Support Service provides Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) with follow on/implementation support by NCSE therapists to build the capacity of schools to embed the learning from TPL into their teaching practice. Together with In-school coaching and co-facilitation of interventions, strategies and resources, with a focus on whole school (Tier 1) and targeted/school support levels (Tier 2) of a multi-tiered system of support.