Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 July 2013
1. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills his views on whether children qualifying for a special needs assistant this coming September will experience reductions in their allocated special needs assistant hours due to the continuance of the cap on numbers at a time when the number of students qualifying for special needs assistant support has increased by 10%; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32544/13]
View answerContrary to the Deputy's public expressions in recent days, I can confirm that there has been no reduction to the overall number of SNA posts for the coming school year.
This provision remains at 10,575 posts - the exact same amount as last year. Let me be very clear - children who qualify for access to SNA support for the coming school year will receive access to this support on precisely the same criteria as they did last year. There has been no change in the method or criteria on which SNAs are allocated. As a result, there is no cut and no changed policy decision on SNA allocations for me to reverse as Minister for Education and Skills.
It is important to note however, that the level of SNAs required to support children with special educational needs changes from year to year in line with the enrolment of different children with different care needs. The care needs of individual children can also change from year to year. The NCSE takes these factors into account when allocating SNAs to schools. It is therefore not accurate to say a change in a school's SNA allocation has anything to do with budget cutbacks or policy changes.
In June 2012 the NCSE reported that the number of children requiring support for the 2012-13 school year was in the order of 20,000 and the most up-to-date current figures show that for December 2012, there were 21,972 accessing SNA support. This is the 10% increase being cited by Deputy McConalogue but the education system seems to have operated perfectly well and has coped with these demands over the past six months.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House
Indeed, the NCSE has advised me that while it has had to work within the cap introduced by the previous Government in 2010 for three years, it has always had surplus capacity at the end of each academic year. I am confident that the system will be sufficiently resourced in order to be able to meet the demands placed upon it in the coming school year.
I call Deputy McConalogue, who has one minute.
I thank the Minister for his response. This is an issue we discussed on Private Members' business last week. At the outset I express my disappointment that neither the Minister nor a Minister of State from the Department of Education and Skills was present for the second day of that debate. In my experience that is unprecedented in the conduct of Private Members' motions. Parents of children with special needs were present in the Visitors Gallery. There was a protest just outside the gates in which parents of children with special needs came to express their dissatisfaction with the Minister's approach to the issue. The combined groups of parents involved issued a statement afterwards outlining how the policy the Minister is pursuing of keeping the cap the same at a time when there is a 10% increase in demand is leading to cuts.
The Deputy is wrong.
The cap is remaining the same and there is a 10% increase in demand. Those are two facts. That means there is a reduction in hours available to individual children who need to avail of an SNA-----
I thank the Deputy.
-----because they now have to share those SNAs with more children, meaning there are fewer hours available to them.
I thank the Deputy.
I am disappointed the Minister is not acknowledging that is the impact it is having on the ground - it is leading to a cut for many children. I ask him to acknowledge that and apply the same-----
I thank the Deputy.
-----treatment to SNAs as he did to the issue of resource teachers-----
I thank the Deputy.
------where he actually increased the number of teachers available there.
The Minister has one minute to reply.
I ask the Acting Chairman to clarify the times for Priority Questions.
I think there is more time than that.
I believe for Priority Questions there is more time.
I am going with what I am advised.
I understand that, but I-----
The Minister has two minutes to reply followed by one minute, one minute, one minute and one minute.
Is that for Priority Questions as distinct from ordinary Oral Questions?
For Priority Questions I thought there was more.
They have all changed, yes.
I would be happy to write to the Deputy setting out what is contained in the reply because if I am to obey the Chair, I do not have the time to give him the full reply.
I am happy to indicate there has not been the reduction in supply he suggests because the demand has not increased as he has alleged. It was not brought to my attention by any of the education partners that there was a shortage of SNAs in recent months despite the increase in pupil numbers in the system. I do not know how many times I have to say that to the Deputy. He has taken two statistics, seen a 10% increase and presumed that meant a similar increase in supply was required in order to meet that demand. That has not been manifest in the system and even to this year, the allocation so far from the NCSE is below the 10,575 figure because the reserve has been kept.
In his final reply I ask the Minister to outline why neither he nor one of his Ministers of State was available to be present in the Dáil last Wednesday night for the debate on the Private Members' motion.
I would be pleased if the Minister could provide some evidence to back up his case. So far we have seen nothing in that regard from him other than an assertion that there has been no cut. We had the same assertion from the Minister and the Tánaiste here in the Dáil that there was no cut in resource teachers and we saw the about-turn the Minister did on that when he admitted there was a cut and he brought forward 500 additional teachers. He is still keeping up this pretence without offering any evidence to show it is not having an impact on the ground. I ask him to enlighten the Dáil today as to what the average hours each child, who avails of an SNA, will get in September as opposed to what it was last September. That might clarify whether students are getting fewer hours' access to an SNA as a result of the 10% increase in demand.
If the Deputy will not take my word for it, I can only draw his attention to the statement released by the National Parents Council last week which stated: "Parents should have no fears regarding the allocation of SNA support. If a child has been assessed as requiring SNA support then an allocation has been provided for the coming year".
Does the Minister have any explanation as to why he was not present last Wednesday night?
I had other commitments. Unfortunately the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, was not available because he was sick and the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, was out of the country.
