Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 5 Oct 1999

Vol. 508 No. 3

Written Answers - School Staffing.

Richard Bruton

Ceist:

362 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of applications which he has received to date for the positions of child care assistant and resource teacher; the number of applications approved in respect of each position; and the number in respect of which persons have been appointed to carry out the work. [18786/99]

Minister for Education and Science (Mr. Martin):

The Deputy will be aware that in November 1998 I announced a major new development in special education services under which all children in the primary system assessed as having special needs arising from a disability will be entitled to an automatic response to those needs.

Arising from this development, my Department has received approximately 800 applications

for special needs assistant support and 580 appli cations for resource teaching support. Each such application has to be assessed by my Department's inspectorate to determine the precise level and nature of the support required, having regard to the needs of the individual children involved.

A total of 386 special needs assistant posts have been sanctioned by my Department since the introduction of the automatic response package. These posts are sanctioned on either a full– time or part-time basis depending on the level of special needs of the pupils involved.

Over the same period, a total of 62 full-time resource teacher posts have been sanctioned. In addition, a further 1,423 part-time resource teaching hours have been sanctioned for individual children or smaller groups of children for whom a full-time post would not be warranted.

The process of allocating resource teacher and special needs assistant support to children with special needs in the primary system is continuing.