Government rejects claim it is 'kicking can down the road' after SNA U-turn

€19m will be provided to allow for extra allocations without cutting back in other schools, Government confirmed on Monday night

Hildegarde Naughton: 'There’s no point in Government proceeding with something where our schools and our teachers and parents in particular are worried about the process, worried whether their children won’t have the support that they need.' File picture

The Government has rejected accusations it is “kicking the can down the road” on SNA allocations by a year.

Education minister Hildegarde Naughton has defended the Government’s U-turn on SNA allocations, with confirmation on Monday night that €19m would be provided to allow for extra allocations without cutting back in other schools.

Ms Naughton said she had listened to concerns of teachers and parents and that was why the Government opted to “put a hold on this process”.

“I want to get it right. There’s no point in Government proceeding with something where our schools and our teachers and parents in particular are worried about the process, worried whether their children won’t have the support that they need,” said Ms Naughton.

She said she was not happy with the sequencing of events, which led to some schools being sent letters informing them of SNA cuts.

Ms Naughton said the SNA redeployment scheme had not been published and had not been explained to SNAs.

“This is actually positive for them and it reassures them, when it's published and explained to them around job security."

Ms Naughton added that a workforce development plan and revised circular on the role of SNAs also needs to be published, before the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) would be reviewing allocations for the 2027/2028 school year.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he did not believe there should be “substantial reductions” in SNA numbers at a given school in any one year.

“Notwithstanding that the majority were one or two [reductions], but in some cases you have up to four schools losing up to four SNAs and that’s a big hit to a school,” Mr Martin said.

The Taoiseach said the Government’s position is that there needs to be an annual review of the system, similar to how it is done for teacher allocations.