Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 July 2017
364. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills the ratio of special needs assistants, SNAs, to pupils in mainstream classes at primary level; and the ratio for SNAs to pupils in mainstream schools at post primary in each of the years 1998 to 2016 and to date in 2017 by county, in tabular form. [34885/17]
View answerI recently announced that 975 additional SNAs will be available for allocation to schools from September 2017 which is a 7.5% increase to meet the demands for the new school year.
A total of 13,990 SNA posts will now be available at a gross annual cost of €458 million. This is more SNAs than we have ever had previously and will ensure that all children who qualify for SNA support can continue to receive access to such support.
In total, the number of SNAs available has increased by over 32% since 2011, when 10,575 posts were available.
The NCSE has advised all schools of their allocations for SNA support for the coming 2017/18 school year. Details of SNA allocations which have been made to schools have been published on by the NCSE on their website at http://ncse.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NCSE-17_18-SNA-Allocation-Primary.pdf.
As the responsibility for the allocation of SNAs to schools resides with the NCSE, the information requested by the Deputy is not retained by my Department. Accordingly I have requested the NCSE to respond directly to the Deputy's question. In view of the fact that the NCSE was established in 2004, data for years preceding that date will not be available.
