Council for special education to start in January

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) will start operations on January 1st, the Minister for Education, Ms Hanafin, announced today.

Ms Hanafin said the council will enable a "step change" in the quality of service delivery to children with special educational needs, their parents and schools.

The council will deploy 80 Special Education Needs Organisers (SENOs) to co-ordinate the State's response to the needs of children with disabilities at a local level.

One of the most important functions of the SENOs will be to ensure that individual students are correctly assessed and an educational plan for the child put in place.

They will also be expected to co-ordinate services from other areas such as the Department of Health which provides speech therapy and physio for students with disability.

As well as putting a human face to the service, the Minister said the SENOs will build up "a bank of expertise on the services available in their district.

"Parents and schools will know who their local SENO is and how to contact him or her directly," Ms Hanafin said.

But she warned the SENOs did not represent an additional layer of bureaucracy but "rather a tangible and vital link between the operating environment on the ground and policy formulation within my Department".

Co-ordinator of the Parents and Siblings Alliance, Mr Seamus Green, gave a cautious welcome to today's announcement, saying it was long overdue given the huge demand in the sector.

However he told ireland.comhe was concerned that 80 SENOs may not be enough to deal with the long waiting lists for assessment.

Mr Green said his group's objective "was to bring children with special needs as near to the mainstream as possible".

But he claimed the Department of Education still had a black and white view on the issue of inclusion when what was needed in many cases were special classes within the mainstream schools.

The National Disability Authority also welcomed the setting up of the Council saying parents and students will welcome local information on designated schools and the types of supports available to their child.

The Authority said: "The integration of the health individual needs assessment and the proposed individual assessment of need under the Disability Bill 2004 will remove much of the stress on parents in knitting services together. We are hopeful of significant service improvements."

The council's inaugural chairman, Mr Tom Murray, said there was a "weight of expectation" that a better level of service would be provided under the NCSE and that he did "not underestimate the challenge ahead".

As well as providing services that will identify and provide for children with disabilities, the Council has a remit to carry out research and advise the Minister.

The Minister said her Department had allocated €628 million to special needs in 2005, an increase of €67million or 12 per cent.