In line with the programme for government commitment, the Education Therapy Service (ETS) has been established as a critical and important support for children and young people in their school environment. The ETS is an additional support for children with special education needs. It is to supplement and not replace existing children’s health and disability services. It is intended to commence initially in specials schools and rollout over time to special classes and mainstream schools. It is anticipated that the service will commence in 45 special schools at a later stage in the 2025/26 school year. Further roll out of the service will occur on a phased basis with a wider roll-out in special schools commencing in the 2026/27 school year.
As referenced, on the 28th November the recruitment campaign for therapists to the new ETS was launched. This campaign will initially see 90 occupational therapists and speech and language therapists consisting of staff and senior grades join their therapy team.
In line with the phased approach for implementation, the current recruitment campaign has included the following counties, Carlow, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Tipperary, Westmeath, Wexford & Wicklow. This ensures that supports are provided to schools aligning with the current National Council for Special Education (NCSE) regional structure for therapy. As this is a national service it will grow and expand to include all schools. It is envisioned that there will be rolling recruitment campaign commencing in 2026 covering all counties to meet the therapy needs of the children in the school system. It is envisioned that further recruitment campaigns will also include additional therapy grades including therapy managers, clinical specialists and therapy assistants.
In addition, the NCSE have been developing an education -based therapy support service known as the previously as the Education Therapy Supports Service (ETSS), which will now be subsumed into the ETS. This service provides two strands of support to all schools: Sustained In-School Therapy and Regional Therapy Supports.
Sustained in-school support (SIT) is provided to schools for a defined period of 18-24 months in line with the School Inclusion Model. 22 schools in the Eastern region and 28 schools in the Western region are receiving support under SIT in the 2025/2026 school year.
Regional therapy support provides Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) with follow on/implementation support by NCSE therapists. The focus of this support is to build the capacity of schools and to embed the learning from TPL into their teaching practice, through In-school coaching and co-facilitation of interventions, strategies and resources. Regional Therapy Supports are available nationally for the 2025/2026 school year.
My Department and the National Council for Special Education (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.
