I thank Deputy Ward for bringing up this issue. I am particularly grateful to him for mentioning Michelle Cotterell, the principal, because I saw the report on the Six One news the other night. I have never met Ms Cotterell - I would be happy to meet her - but I thought her presentation of the issue was exceptional. She made the point - indeed, it is a point I have been repeating in the days since - that we have to use the period of time between now and future school years to look at the fact that the school community or composition, not only of that school but of all schools, has changed significantly since the 2014 circular, and that is what we intend to do. We have to be honest in relation to this, and we should be honest. Parents of children with special needs assistants, teachers and SNAs themselves know this. Reviews have always been a feature of the SNA system. They largely paused since Covid. They have always been a feature. We need to make sure, though, that the review is based on a revised circular that is more reflective and understanding of the reality in the school classroom today. The reality is that when it comes to the phrase "additional and significant needs", there are children whose additional and significant care needs are obvious and visible, and there now likely more such children, certainly than there were in 2014, and there are some who are less likely to be visible and perhaps could be referred to as hidden or at least often hidden. That is the point that I heard Ms Cotterell make. It is a point that I heard many people make. It is a point that I think is true. We are going to revise the circular. We should do this in a deliberative manner. We should listen, we should engage and we should get it right. Crucially, we also need to get the SNA redeployment scheme over the line. My understanding is it is almost there. This is something that I acknowledge Fórsa has been engaging constructively on. I thank it for that. This is important and it would put SNAs on a similar par to teachers in terms of redeployment. Third, we need to also have a look at workforce planning in general in special education. What frustrates parents of a child with additional needs is that we can stand here and say we are spending more money than ever before - true - we will have more SNAs in classrooms than ever before - true - and we will have more special classes open than ever before - true - and yet one will not meet many parents of a child with additional needs who feels the system is where the system needs to be. We need to look at how we workforce plan. The Deputy raised an interesting point and I will not give a knee-jerk response to it on the floor of the Dáil. I certainly remember when I was in school a classroom assistant used to actually be a role. I have no sense of where the policy thinking in the Department of education is on that but I will certainly follow up with the Minister for education on that. Our priority, alongside the SNA circular review, is the roll-out of the therapist workforce in education. We now have for the first time - it has only started - established within the NCSE an education therapy workforce. Forty-five special schools are being sanctioned first but the ultimate aim here is to get this into mainstream schools. That could make a very significant difference because one of the realities that I hear from SNAs is that often they find themselves having to also pick up the slack due to the lack of provision of other services, most particularly therapies. We need to look at how we can address that therapy deficit too.

Sentiment score: 0.22

Something good has to come from this. When you are a parent under pressure worrying if your child is going to get the supports that they need, you do not really care which arm of the State, which office, which Minister or which Department. The buck stops with us, the Government. That is why we needed to stop the review, provide the additional SNAs where that was identified, not have a downward revision in schools but then crucially use this time - that is the really important bit. I say this in the spirit it is meant. We should engage collaboratively in this House, whether at relevant Oireachtas committees or wherever the appropriate place is, to identify what we want the system to look like into the future. The level of investment now, quite rightly, is very high. The number of people in the system, quite rightly, is very high. All of us feel that we are getting to a point where it is also going to have to involve a conversation about reform and about what an inclusive model of education looks like. Nobody has a monopoly in terms of the answer on that. It has been an upsetting week. In politics, when something goes wrong, it is your responsibility to say that, to fix it and to learn from it. That is what we intend to do.

Sentiment score: 0.02