Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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1308. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to discuss the recent changes to the allocation model for special education. [44255/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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This government is fully committed to supporting children with special educational needs to fulfil their full potential and the Programme for Government makes a number of commitments to deliver on this objective.

Special education teachers provide additional teaching to children attending mainstream classes with special educational needs using a wide variety of teaching approaches.

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 as identified through the Continuum of Support framework.

The allocations of special education teaching posts for the next school year were published on 11 February and all schools received an email notification from the NCSE of their allocation.

For the 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.

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.