I spoke on this last night here in the Dáil and again today with the Taoiseach. This has been an absolutely catastrophic number of weeks for so many people for whom this matter has caused so much stress. I said last night that, as a Parliament, we have to take account of the fact that so many children, particularly those with additional needs, along with parents, SNAs and school communities, were deeply affected. We cannot just turn around on a whim all of a sudden and stop talking about this, because for two weeks straight schools were deeply affected by what they were led to believe was the taking of resources from children. Ultimately, that is what happened. We had a policy in place. The Department implemented that policy through the SENOs and NCSE. Schools received letters stating they were to lose or gain SNAs. There was a huge outcry of support for SNAs and then, all of a sudden, the policy was scrapped. It was rowed back. The political wind changed and we were offered €19 million to save the day. Last year, I stood on the streets of Cork city and outside this Dáil with parents who were trying to access special classes for their children. To be fair to the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, he worked extremely hard to get classes set up and make them available. We did that but this year again there is another issue. It relates to SNAs. It is a question of resources and classes, and it should not be the case that every single year it is the parents and children who are deeply affected by ad hoc decision-making by the Government.

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Hear, hear.

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