As the Deputy will be aware, my Department provides a range of teaching and care supports for children with special educational needs, including children with Down Syndrome. The professionally-assessed needs of the individual child determines the appropriate model of response in each case. Children with Down Syndrome are entitled to additional provision in school, either under the terms of the general allocation system of teaching supports if the assessment places the child in the high incidence disability category or through an allocation of additional resources if the child is assessed as being within the low incidence category of special need, as defined by my Department's circular. It would appear that a significant percentage of children with Down Syndrome have been assessed as having a Mild General Learning Disability which comes under the high incidence disability category. Such pupils fall to be catered for from within a school's general allocation of resource teaching support which was introduced in primary schools in September 2005. It is not a case of resource hours for children with Down Syndrome being withdrawn but rather a case of giving schools the flexibility in using its professional judgement to decide how these hours are divided between different children in the school, to ensure that all their needs are met. In circumstances where a Down Syndrome child has other associated needs and would fall into the low incidence disability categories, this may automatically attract an individual resource teaching allocation. Such applications should be referred to the local Special Educational Needs Organiser (SENO) by the school. I am satisfied that the mechanisms are in place to provide appropriate resources for children with special needs in our schools, including those with Down Syndrome.
With regard to an appeals process, the Deputy will be aware that the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act 2004 was enacted in July 2004. The Special Education Appeals Board (SEAB) was established under section 36 of the Act to hear and determine appeals pursuant to a number of sections of the Act. The SEAB will become operational as soon as the relevant sections of the Act have come into effect. The relevant sections of the Act could not come into effect without the NCSE having an opportunity to present an implementation report to me, which it did recently and I am currently considering its contents. In the interim, the NCSE will undertake to review a decision taken by a SENO on foot of a request from a school or parents/guardians, when accompanied by relevant additional information, which may not have been to hand at the time of the decision. The NCSE has outlined this process in its Circular 01/05.
