Special Needs Assistants: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-04
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Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel

I do not have all that much to add to Senator Clonan's exposition, but I want to put a little bit of historical perspective on the matter under discussion today. I come at it from the point of view of a múinteoir scortha, chomh maith leis an Seanadóir Clonan, agus b'fhéidir an tAire.
My time in the classroom finished in 2005. At that stage, I had been a teaching principal of a four-teacher school in County Waterford for 19 years. It pre-dated the 2014 circular so there was no such thing as an SNA in the schools I worked in. When we look at the numbers that are involved in special needs assistance now, one thing that we should look at, from the glass half-full rather than half-empty perspective, is how far we have to come with support for children with special needs.
If we extrapolate the figures from then and now - and I am looking back at a teaching career that lasted 32 years before I went working with one of the colleges of education in 2005 - every time I was in front of a class, there were two or three children who needed special needs assistance but did not get it. In a sort of oblique way, I want to celebrate the fact that we have it now, but é sin ráite.
This is putting the cart before the horse slightly because, as my colleague Senator Curley knows, we have a meeting of the Joint Committee on Education and Youth tomorrow and this matter is going to come before that and we will be able to scrúdú níos fearr agus iniúchadh a dhéanamh leis na daoine atá ag teacht isteach, and we may be able to get more reasoned debate. The format of this debate is not great to pick out what happened in the whole debacle or whatever. We will get a chance to go through it tomorrow. I do not want to say anything much except thank the Minister for her sharp, instantaneous response to the crisis that emerged over the last number of weeks.
I will not be around, but maybe when the Minister comes to publish her diaries, she will tell us the full story of what went on behind it all. I would love to be around to read it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-04