Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25 ============================================================ Eoghan Kenny (LAB), Cork North-Central The Chair should be respected. Over the past two weeks, the Government has let down children with additional needs, special needs assistants, parents, school communities and now special educational needs organisers, SENOs. That is why tonight, across the country, these very people will take to the streets and protest outside the Dáil at 5 p.m. At every opportunity, the Labour Party has welcomed developments in our education system. I welcomed new special classes, new special schools, new SNAs and the proposed roll-out of therapy supports but when something is not right, I will call it out for what it is, and this was plainly wrong. The Government was pitting one child’s needs against those of another. The political wind changed and the Government felt the pressure, scrapped the policy, went to the kitty and got money. This is a clear indication that either the Taoiseach had no faith in the policy that his Government created or he had some sort of realisation that those working within our schools might actually be right. In any case, the Taoiseach and his Government colleagues are doing their best to spin this as a win. It is in fact another case of announce, backlash, retreat and re-announce. Deep down, this question must be posed. How much damage has the Government done to special education in this country? Every year, there is fear, anxiety and worry on the part of parents across the country who wonder if their child will have an appropriate class and resources, SNA support and enough special education teachers. Parents should not have to carry that burden. As a State, we must get special education right. It cannot be ad hoc . It must take a long-term approach where we are not scrambling every year to get the basics right. I want to clarify two points. First, in his response to my party leader yesterday, the Taoiseach stated the Government "did not sign off on this" initiative. What did he mean by that? His Government created this policy and got the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, through the SENOs, to implement the policy. They did as they were told. They informed schools of the decisions based on the policy the Government created. The Taoiseach said the Government did not sign off on this. Will he clarify what he meant by that? Did he agree with the policy? Did he not know the letters were being sent out? Was this the Taoiseach attempting to place the blame on SENOs and the NCSE? Second, the Taoiseach said yesterday that the role of the SNA is primarily for the child and not for the school. The 2014 circular clearly states in section 10 that SNAs are not allocated to individual pupils but to schools as a schools-based resource in the same manner that teachers are allocated to schools. Can the Taoiseach clarify what he meant by that? Is it a lack of understanding or another opportunity to deflect from the reality that the Government was taking resources off children? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-25