The Minister may want to try to deflect from her statement today but Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are responsible for the SNA crisis. It is of their own making and is compounded by their chaotic, uncertain handling of the mess. Letters did go out. It would be something if they recognised the distress caused to parents, children and SNAs, held their hands up, recognised their mistake and apologised. They should not try to blame the NCSE. It is not its fault; the Minister is in charge. She should apologise and make clear to the schools facing cuts to their SNA allocation that these will not go ahead. However, the Government chooses to further compound the cruelty with a review of a review, with no date for when this will be completed. Parents, children, SNAs and teachers are expected to pick up the slack. They deserve better than the Government spinning a review to provide cover for a quieter climbdown in a few weeks or in the mistaken hope it might succeed in getting this over the line at a later point. What they deserve is to have the Government now clearly, categorically and without equivocation address and resolve the hurt the Minister and Minister of State have caused. Sinn Féin's motion last night offered every Member of the House the opportunity to apologise to every school, SNA and family impacted. The Government should commit to abandoning the debacle-laden review, publishing a comprehensive SNA workforce development plan, developing a genuine partnership with SNAs and their unions, and implementing a fair and transparent SNA redeployment scheme to provide job security for existing SNAs to retain their invaluable experience within the school system. That is what recognition of hurt the Government has caused actually looks like, and it is so familiar to all the SNAs who are protesting this evening for that very reason.

Sentiment score: 0.02