I wish to raise the issue of the appeals' process in the allocation of special needs assistants, SNAs, in the context of the treatment meted out to St. Aidan's primary school in Enniscorthy in Wexford. St. Aidan's is one of the largest DEIS band 1 vertical primary schools in Ireland. It is exceptional in scale for a primary school, with 861 pupils. It has seven special classes, 36 mainstream classes and 76 teachers and has been awarded 15.75 SNAs. The school currently has 54 pupils attending the seven special classes, all operating at level 3 support. The vast majority of the pupils here have care need plans and require regular access to an SNA. Of these pupils, 38 have a single diagnosis and 17 of the pupils have multiple different diagnoses, including general learning disability, autism spectrum disorder, ASD, speech and language disorder and severe intellectual disorder. Five pupils within the school are type 1 diabetics. There are also children who suffer from social and emotional behavioural difficulties, and children with anaphylaxis, epilepsy and physical disabilities. There are 36 pupils in mainstream classes with a diagnosis of ASD at different levels and as of yet the SNA allocation that covers both the special classes and the mainstream settings remains unchanged at 15.75 SNAs. Therein lies the difficulty. The school appealed the outcome of the SNA review it requested. It was told that there would be no change to the SNA allocation and that the whole school SNA allocation for 2025-26 would continue at 15.75 SNAs. The letter the school received from a principal officer in the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, stated that this decision can be appealed. The details of the appeals process can be found online. In the letter, the NCSE advised the school to seek a rationale for the outcome prior to the submission of any appeal. Therein lies the problem. Those in the school tried up and down and back and forward. They went to the local special educational needs organiser, SENO, and they went to the regional manager of the NCSE. They also went to the NCSE itself but nobody could give the school the rationale. They were encouraged to seek the rationale to add to their submission of their appeal. There is a ten-day period to appeal. The school went numerous times to the regional manager, the SENO and the NCSE. The NCSE came back with no clarity, no advice and no direction. No guidance could be provided by the staff there as to how they would access the rationale for the SNA review. In the end the school had to submit its appeal to the NCSE without any access to the rationale that it was encouraged by the very same NCSE to acquire in order to submit the appeal. This is a major school with massive support requirements. The teaching staff and the SNAs are put to the pin of their collar to provide a decent atmosphere and a decent schooling for the myriad children in the school who have additional needs. It simply is not good enough. I will acknowledge that I contacted the head of the NCSE and he came back to me after a couple of days to say it would be investigating the matter. To put the staff through the wringer on this and not supply the rationale that the school was requested to seek is simply not good enough in the context of the stress that already exists within these schools.
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The advice was in the letter.
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I thank the Minister of State for the response. Obviously it is not her core area so I understand the difficulty she finds herself in. I am holding the letter from a principal officer which was sent to say that there would be no change. Within the letter the school is advised to seek the rationale. I appreciate that the Minister of State said herself that this issue does not apply just to St. Aidan's school in Enniscorthy. It is a huge primary school, particularly when one considers all the supports that are required. A letter was sent to the school informing it to seek a rationale for what was required while, at the same time, no one within that organisation, from the bottom to the top, could tell it where to get that rationale. From the conversations I had with the deputy principal and the head of special education teachers in the school when they visited me at my constituency office in Wexford, I know that they tried everything multiple times but no one within the organisation could provide them with the rationale, which seems to be a key component of the appeals process. What does this say about the entire appeals process from the start? Are all schools advised to seek the rationale? The fact that the school could not even be told where to get the rationale and the regional manager said he was seeking guidance indicates to me that there is a bit of chaos within the NCSE when it comes to processing the appeals system. It throws something of a blanket over the appeals process and suggests that it is a matter of just ticking a box to say “Computer says “No””. It does not have any rationale available despite the fact that it tells schools to look for it. The notion that no one within the organisation knows where to go to find it is quite baffling. I am sure the Minister of State will agree with me in that regard.
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