Special Needs Assistants: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Hildegarde Naughton (FG), Galway West

I welcome the opportunity to address the House this evening, to speak to this motion and provide an update on special needs assistants. At the outset, I want to be very clear: this Government is fully committed to supporting children with special educational needs and the programme for Government makes a number of commitments to deliver on this objective.
I want to state categorically that no cuts are proposed, or will be proposed, to the provision of SNAs to children and young people across our school system. Last night, the Government met and agreed a number of measures that will give clarity to schools, parents, young people and SNAs. These measures are: all schools reviewed by the NCSE and allocated additional resources will receive them in the upcoming school year; no reductions will come into effect in the 2026-2027 school year; and the SNA redeployment scheme, the SNA workforce development plan, and changes to the 2014 circular outlining the role of an SNA will be advanced before any further decisions are taken.
At the forefront of our deliberations was ensuring that the child-centred approach to the provision of special education is retained and enhanced in these policy developments. Working alongside almost 22,000 special education teachers, this September will see almost 25,000 SNAs play a key role in our schools, supporting children and young people with care needs. I know from meeting SNAs, families and young people that many children would not thrive in school without them. Their work, hand in hand with special education teachers, is paramount to helping children achieve. That is why I fully understand why we have heard a lot of genuine concern and worry over the last week from SNAs, schools and parents on how they might be affected by any changes to school allocations.
We have also heard a lot of misinformation. It is important to bring clarity on some of the issues. This Government has nothing but respect for SNAs, special education teachers, schools, students and their families.

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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