I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion and the work it has done on it today and over the past while. The Opposition and several Members on the Government side are united on the fact that what occurred should never have happened. The Government has been forced to climb down because of enormous public anger. It is a victory for parents, SNAs, school communities, advocacy groups and others who have contacted every TD, Senator and publicly elected representative. Unfortunately, the Government is now desperate to kick the can down the road for another year. I will come to that in a minute, because what happens the year after will also be a challenge. What has occurred has led to so much uncertainty for SNAs and the children they support. The handling of the issue over recent weeks has been disastrous and consequently it has caused huge distress among families, school leaders and, of course, SNAs. The countrywide protest planned for tomorrow will go ahead. Perhaps the announcement very late last night was a bid to prevent it, but the reality is that it now needs to happen more than ever because this should never have happened. When the protest happens tomorrow, three things will be asked for, the first being that the circular, which is too narrow and outdated, be revised. Meeting primary care needs was what the SNA role was originally created for. However, that role, like many things in education, has evolved. The circular needs to evolve to reflect the reality of the needs of students in our schools now. I really hope the Minister can redeem herself by ensuring it reflects the reality in the schools and the needs of the children. Second, the Department must bring forward all stakeholders. There are experts. One cannot know everything and the NCSE cannot, but there are experts who know many things and they need to be engaged. Third, there must be a full understanding of how redeployment will happen. The reality is that the relationships SNAs have with the children they support are key. You cannot help a child to regulate if they do not trust you and it is not safe. It is vital that redeployment is not treated as a numbers game. This will be the most important thing that happens. Redeployment is not just about one child leaving a school and about knocking off a few hours here and there; it is about relationships. It is as fundamental as any other part of the school system. You cannot just knock off bits of things because it makes sense to do so in a numbers game. The relationship aspect is so important. The Government needs to rebuild the trust that has been so badly damaged. I do not envy the Minister. I am sure that, from a personal perspective, things have been torturous for her over the past while, but that must not supersede the torture that families, children and SNAs have experienced. She will have to work very hard to restore trust. The Respect for SNAs campaign started in 2019. I was a member of Fórsa at the time. The campaign started because SNAs were not respected and not valued or treated as they should have been within our education system. What we can see now is the respect that SNAs have among all parents, schools and those who contacted members of the Opposition. I am aware that the Minister has said she respects them, so she now needs to demonstrate that in action. She needs to prove herself to show she does respect SNAs. In the background is the question of what will happen of foot of the change regarding assessments of need on entering special schools. How will allocation work? This year everything was supposed to be sorted out, but there will be another nuance to consider when children do not need the diagnosis. How will special education places be allocated then? That brings me to special schools for mild general learning disabilities. How will these schools avoid becoming catch-all schools? How will they avoid the erosion of the specialised care they are excellent at providing to children with mild general learning disabilities? A one-size-fits-all approach is going to be a huge failure in this regard. The Taoiseach said earlier that he will work with the Opposition and, as other Members noted, with whoever needs to be worked with to get this sorted. The reality is that this has gone wrong. We have to work together. We have to work with whoever has the knowledge. We do not need to be precious about it; we need to get it done. Therefore, I have written to the Taoiseach and asked, on the basis that one of the requests for tomorrow is for the protest, that he engage with the relevant Ministers and facilitate it. I think he gave me an answer in which he said "Yes", so I have written to him to ask how it can be facilitated. There was no apology today. Tomorrow there will be an apology for another group of people who were harmed, many moons ago, in our schools. I hope an apology regarding SNAs never has to come. The Minister has time now to rectify the problem and ensure this does not continue to be an absolute disaster. What is important now is that lessons be learned from this. Nothing like this should ever happen again. I am asking the Minister and Minister of State to take stock in order to ensure that the necessary steps are taken and fully considered. I ask them to listen to stakeholders who have experience. I also ask the Minister and the Minister of State to please bring humanity back into the classrooms because what we have seen over the past few days should never happen. We should never, ever have to apologise to children in the future. We will be doing that tomorrow for things that happened in the past and we cannot do it in the future for what is happening to children today.

Sentiment score: 0.07