Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I understand where the Deputy is coming from. She speaks of cynicism. She personifies cynicism in her approach to politics and issues. She does not deal with them substantively or in any considered way.
The bottom line is this. If we take special needs assistants alone, in 2020, there were 16,000 special needs assistants. Starting next September, there will be more than 25,000 special needs assistants. The number has gone from 16,000 to almost 18,000 in 2021, 19,000 in 2022, 20,000 in 2023, 22,000 in 2024, 23,800 in 2025 and more than 25,000 in 2026. That is not cutbacks or pulling back. That is not taking special needs assistants away from vulnerable children. That is allocating more resources.
It is the same across the board in terms of special education. Investment has been very significant over the past number of years. From a position where, prior to 2020, there were very few special schools and none at all in the previous five or six years, we have established 16 new special schools since 2020. Some 28% of the budget is now allocated to special education and we have up to 30,000 students in special classes and special schools. The investment made is very considerable and will increase.
One of the reasons is that there was a significant increase in the number of children and young people identifying with a disability in the most recent census, as opposed to the census prior to that. It is a very significant increase. That is impacting on our schools and demand. We are correct in that we need to finish off the work that has been done on the redeployment scheme. A lot of work was done on that with all the partners and stakeholders in education. That will give safety and security of tenure to special needs assistants, as we did for teachers many years ago. There was a redeployment scheme in place for teachers.
As regards the teaching allocation, as the Deputy knows, every September, depending on the numbers in a given school, teacher numbers will either increase, decrease or stay the same in that school. If there is a reduced number of pupils in September and the school does not meet a certain cut-off point in terms of pupil-teacher ratio, it loses a teacher. If it is above or at that level, it gains teachers. The same applies and has always applied to special needs assistants, insofar as the needs of children in a given school have to be assessed, and should be assessed, on an annual basis, because things change. Need either increases or it can decrease. That is logical and natural. What transpired here was there had not been a comprehensive review for quite a number of years and the National Council for Special Education embarked on one.
In our view, from a Government perspective, we believe the building blocks should be in place first - the redeployment scheme, the workforce planning and a new circular, and in addition to that then, continued allocation of resources to a needs-based approach.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24