I welcome the pause, but, obviously, a pause is not a permanent solution. It is not a binding decision and everybody in this House is going to be watching with interest what happens over the next few weeks. We in Fianna Fáil have always prided ourselves on being the party of education. The number of SNAs in the country has increased by 45% since I became a TD. That is a good story but in the past week we have somehow upscuttled a lot of that progress and good work. I join Deputy Boyd Barrett in calling for a cessation of any cuts in this academic year. One thing I learned as a teacher was that SENOs always did reviews, and they were always ongoing. They were annual in nature, so nobody faced a cliff edge in terms of cuts to services. We have to go back to a scenario where the reviews are ongoing. Diagnosis takes place at various times throughout the year. The needs of a school change over the course of a year and we need to have built-in headroom in terms of the allocation of resources going forward.

Sentiment score: 0.15

I will leave the Minister of State with three points because I know he will be engaging with the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and his senior Minister in the next few days. First, the cliff edge that I have spoken to him about regularly cannot be the reality. The review I spoke to him about which happened every year needs to be consistent so we do not face this cliff edge in the future. At this point, the loss of any SNA is not tenable given the climate and context of what has happened and the lack of trust and the anxiety created. There were always minor movements in the number of SNAs over the years but given the gravity of what has happened and the scale of some of the drops, it is not tenable. I spoke privately to the Minister of State about the lack of a requirement of a diagnosis. That will create problems down the line. We need something clinical and that can generate statistics in order that people can be guided in making these decisions, particularly the SENOs.

Sentiment score: -0.02