I thank Sinn Féin for bringing the motion forward. I welcome the fact there will be statements on this in the Dáil tomorrow. I welcome any parents, SNAs or students who are in the Gallery. The Minister and Minister of State will appreciate this has been a significantly difficult two weeks for SNAs, school communities, parents and children with additional needs. I have met and spoken with a number of school principals, SNAs and parents in particular across the country over the past two weeks as a result of the fact that supports were going to be taken from children. It has been said on a number of occasions in the House over the past number of weeks that cuts were going to take place. The Taoiseach refuted that on each occasion. At budget time, I welcomed the increase in allocation of SNAs. I welcome developments in our education system. I always will but, fundamentally, we must ensure that resources are never taken for granted and never taken from children. That was what was going to happen. Although the fact is we were going to increase our allocation of SNAs, the rigid criteria created by the Department of education was ultimately going to take SNA provision and support from children. There is no refuting that because schools that had SNA provision got a review from SENOs and the NCSE and were told they were losing SNAs. That support was going to be taken from the child. That is exactly what was going to happen. The Taoiseach can state that no cuts were going to take place and jobs were going to be secured all he wants. Ultimately, provision of SNA allocation and resources were going to be taken from children. Today, in response to my party leader, the Taoiseach said, "The Government never signed off on this [initiative]". This policy was created by this Government. The Department of education asked the NCSE to implement this policy. The NCSE did that. The SENOs went to schools, did the reviews and gave the letters back to the schools outlining X amount of SNAs they would lose or gain. They implemented that policy, so the Government did sign off on that initiative. I think the Taoiseach misinterpreted the facts. We did not ask him whether he signed every letter individually to each school but he has to stand over the fact, as do the Minister and Minister of State, that this was a Department of education policy implemented by the National Council for Special Education. On the plinth this morning, I spoke about the fact I would hate to be one of the 120 or so SENOs in this country. Why? If I were a SENO asked to do a job, I might not have agreed with the policy. More than likely, because they are all human like us, the SENOs probably did not agree with the policy because they did not want to take resources from schools, but they had to go and have the tough conversations with principals of schools to say they were losing SNAs. Yet, this morning, they heard there was row back on it, and that the Government did not agree with the policy and was going to change it. All schools would keep their SNAs and the decisions the SENOs made, based on the policy the Government told them to implement, were no longer going to go ahead. I got a text from a SENO tonight who told me they were at home crying all day. Can you imagine that? That should not be the case. In all these deliberations over the past two weeks, we should think of the number of people we as a State have failed. We have failed children with additional needs, SENOs and members of the NCSE who implemented a policy created by the Government. We have failed principals who had to have the difficult conversations with their SNAs to say they were last in and would be first out. I will also contribute on that. In relation to the redeployment scheme, how did we ever believe it was acceptable to send letters to schools stating they were losing SNAs without ever having a redeployment scheme established? I understand the fact it will be done in a number of weeks. I welcome redeployment and understand it is necessary. I welcome it because, naturally, needs change in schools. I accept that, but how did the Minister and Minister of State ever think that sending these letters outlining cuts to SNAs in schools was okay, which would leave a cohort of workers in a situation where they had no idea where they were going to be working next year? The Taoiseach assured us that no jobs were going to be lost. That is okay, but a person who has been a special needs assistant in a school for a certain number of years cannot be left in limbo. They cannot be left in a position where they do not know where they are going to be working. It could be 45 km away from their current place of work. I agree with the fact, which the Minister has said on a number of occasions, that the SNAs had a great say in this redeployment. That is to be welcomed. I will always welcome that all stakeholders be involved in creating different circumstances within the Department, but how did we ever think it was going to be acceptable to send a letter to a school to say it would lose SNAs, have principals bring those people into their office, tell them their job is gone, and that person having to go home not knowing where their job is going to be for the next year, or if they are going to be able to keep their job? So many SNAs have come to me and said that the job or position they have been offered is 0.25 hours or 0.5 hours. Realistically, there are naturally going to be cuts because nobody is going to take a position like that. Nobody will take up a position that is 0.25 hours. That could be 20 minutes of the week; I do not know how much it is. No one will take that, so naturally there will be cuts. There are so many lessons to be learned from this. All of us in this House have to learn from this. We have abruptly tried to make a decision on taking provision of services from children. That should never ever be allowed to happen. If any child in this country needs a resource, money should never be a barrier. Whatever about that, it should never ever be incorporated into any policy that a child who needs a resource should not be given it. Why should we pit one child against another based on their individual needs? No child is the same as the other, so we should not pit needs against each other. The Government must also accept that although it is a fact, which, as I said, I accept, that allocations have increased, the level of resources has not kept up with the level of need. There is a significant level of need in our country right now. I accept that there will be over 25,000 SNAs in our country. It is wonderful and a brilliant achievement but it is not enough. We can do more. If we can get an allocation of €19 million overnight, what more could we do? I am here to help. Anything I can do, I will do, but when things have to be called out, the Minister has to appreciate that she has to own up to the mistake that was made. A policy decision was taken by the Department of education. The Department asked the NCSE to implement that decision, and it did so. That is the difficulty I have. Does the fact that we are now going to review the policy mean that the Minister no longer has confidence in it? We allowed it to be implemented, and she knew it was being implemented. She took up her position and knew it was going to be implemented. Does she no longer have faith in it? If she does not, is it because there was such an outcry and a backlash against the Government? We do not need to be lectured on the role of the NCSE. I believe it, and the SENOs have been thrown under the bus.

Sentiment score: 0.05