‘Rebalancing’ of SNAs across schools needed – Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
By Gráinne Ní Aodha, Press Association
Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has defended proposed cuts to special needs assistants (SNAs) at some schools across the country as a “rebalancing” of supports.
Education Minister Hildegarde Naughton paused a review of SNA provisions after backlash from teachers, parents and the trade union Forsa at cuts proposed at dozens of schools from September.
When suggested that supports were being cut before a new special needs system was put in place, Carroll MacNeill said there had been a “considerable expansion” in SNAs across the country since she became a TD.
“No, that’s not my experience,” she told the media on Tuesday afternoon.
“What I see is an increase in my area, and I do see a redeployment.
“There is a huge, huge body of momentum towards extra supports – quite the opposite to what I think you might be suggesting – that there are more special supports in schools for children in my own constituency, it is a hugely important issue, and I would be very, very familiar with the particular needs of every school.
“There is quite a lot of work going into this. I recognise that the minister has placed a pause on this.
“I’ve spoken with the head of the (National Council for Special Education) myself in relation to this, because as a constituency TD, I would have always done that, and I know that in most cases, there won’t be any change.
“In others, there are important changes, where, for example, if there are six children in sixth class who move into first year, and there are not the same number of children requiring special supports, then there’s a redistribution of those SNA needs to happen, particularly if there’s a bigger demand at the school next door.
“That’s a process that is always going to need some measure of fluidity.
“But what I see in my school, in my constituency, is more SNAS and more schools embracing special supports, embracing special classes, and it’s been a wonderful change to observe as a constituency TD over the last six years.”
She added: “I see, for example, a commitment that there is no SNA going to be losing their job, but they might reasonably be redeployed to the school next door if that school has greater need than school A, if School B has because of the children presenting to it, maybe it’s a boys’ school next to a girls’ school, as in is the case in Killiney, for example, where there have been many, many supports provided by the girls’ schools and now, more recently, by the boys’ school, and sometimes a rebalancing of that is going to be appropriate over time.
“What I think the Taoiseach said, and what the minister has said, is that that is a review that needs to happen more often, so that we are more quickly and more appropriately responding to the profile of children, to the needs of children who are in the school at any given day.”
