Department ‘owes struggling schools €300k’
The cash-strapped network, called Early Language Intervention (ELI), has struggled to pay staff during the year.
ELI managing director Joel Nudi blamed the department for failing to apply the correct tuition reimbursement rate over the past three years.
About 100 students with speech and language delay problems attend ELI’s four pre-schools in Dublin and one in Galway.
Mr Nudi said ELI’s debts amounted to more than €100,000.
“If the department had paid the correct subsidy for home tuition, the schools’ financial stability would not be in jeopardy,” he said.
Mr Nudi said it took Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore to get the department to confirm in a Dáil reply last month that the incorrect rate had been applied.
The correct hourly tuition rate for ELI-qualified teachers should be €36.21 from September 2004 and €42.19 from June this year.
Mr Nudi said the department had been paying an hourly rate of €27.12 — the rate paid to unqualified, part-time resource teachers.
A spokesperson for the department confirmed yesterday that arrangements were under way to calculate and issue arrears that might be due to teachers paid at the unqualified rate.
Mr Nudi said the pre-school network, established in 2001 provided immediate intervention for children with crippling speech and language problems.
“The staggering Health Service Executive (HSE) waiting list of up to three years means that children may have reached their primary school years before receiving the help they need,” he said.
“We are doing work that the State should be doing. We are succeeding in getting around 70% of children who come to us into mainstream school,” he said.
A more recent review showed that ELI was increasing the language ability of children by 50% in the time they spent with the network.
Mr Nudi said ELI had been pleading with the department to pay the correct rate for almost two years.
