Mattie McGrath
Question:177. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Education and Skills when the 950 jobs for special needs assistants will become available. [17441/18]
View answerTuesday, 24 April 2018
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Written answers
975 additional SNAs posts were made available for allocation to schools from September 2017 which was a 7.5% increase to meet the demands for the 2017/18 school year. This brought the total SNA posts available last September to 13,990.
Financial provision for some 1091 additional SNAs was made in Budget 2018. Of these 130 have been made available for allocation from January to June 2018. The remaining posts will be required to meet qualifying applications from September to end December 2018.
The total number of SNA posts available currently is 14,120 at a gross annual cost of € 462 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 33% since 2011, when 10,575 posts were available.
Details of SNA allocations which have been made to schools are available on a county by county and individual school basis, on the NCSE website at www.ncse.ie.
The NCSE are currently processing SNA applications from schools for the coming school year and aims to respond in May 2018 to valid applications for access to SNA support received.