Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

The Government has voted expenditure of over €118 billion. Within that voted expenditure, this additional allocation of around €19 million will be made to the Department of Education and Youth. No official should be in any way glib in that regard, because we are very sincere in respect of this matter. That money will be provided. I say this as a coalition leader and as the Minister for Finance.
I take the point that after the week we have had, trust has to be earned back. That is a fair point. People were deeply upset and hurt. I can outline the rationale and all the statistics, but what I have said is also true - people were upset and hurt. How you earn that trust back is by listening and delivering. Therefore, in the first instance, we will deliver on the part of the review that would have seen additional SNAs being allocated to schools. We will not go ahead with the part that would have seen a reduction in the number of SNAs. We will revise Circular 0030/2014, and it is a long time since then. We are happy to hear the Deputy's views and the views of others in relation to that. We will get the SNA redeployment scheme over the line.
I say the following to be constructive- I said it a moment ago, and I know the Deputy has a sincere interest in it. We in this House need to look at how we can have wider engagement on the broader policy issues. The demographics are bringing us into certain areas, as are the complexities involved. We need to have an informed discussion about the policy approach we want to take, as well as about the funding approach.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-26