I welcome the Minister of State. I am glad he is here to take this matter.

I am convinced that every week the Government meets and decides what fresh hell it can inflict on people and how it can undermine the most vulnerable in our society. The Minister of State is no stranger to the issue of SNAs. A pause was put on, but that pause does not mean a stop. A couple of weeks ago, many autism spectrum disorder, ASD, classes were open. It was fantastic that they were open, and nobody is disputing that. This is the way the Government treats them. An article in the Connacht Tribune last week stated that an ASD class for Creagh National School in east Galway was formally approved and given sanction on 12 January last. However, families have been told that their children cannot be considered for placements because the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, application portal closed on 1 October 2025, more than three months before the class actually existed. That shows how the Government treats young children in our society at the moment.

A pause does not mean that the anxiety of the parents, the schools or the teachers has gone away. It is still very much there. What does that pause actually mean for people? Will the SNAs who got letters that they were to be redeployed be reinstated? There is no redeployment strategy. Kids are missing school. I have heard from many schools. The Minister of State is from my constituency. He knows the scale of the story, and the scale of what is happening in our constituency and even beyond that. It is ridiculous. These are the policies of the members of the Government. They are in government. These are the decisions they are making.

Since we are talking about policy, I would like to refresh the House’s memory that the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act of 2004 established the principle of inclusive education and requires that children with special educational needs receive education appropriate to their needs and abilities. Children’s needs do not change when they change class. Children's needs are constantly there. We are trying to give them the best start in life. What we are doing is undermining the system and undermining parents. We are not listening to the parents, teachers or SNAs who are working with them every single day. Furthermore, under the Equal Status Act, schools must provide reasonable accommodation to prevent substantial disadvantage to pupils with disabilities. Where children require supervision or behavioural regulation, an SNA is not optional; an SNA is part of a reasonable accommodation.

I do not know how this decision came about, but the pause does not mean anything because there is no plan for that pause. Parents, teachers, SNAs and schools want to know a few things, and it is not unreasonable to ask those questions. What does the pause actually mean? Will the SNAs be put back into the mainstream? What is the deployment plan? We mentioned that an additional 1,700 SNAs are to be delivered. When is that going to happen? If I sit down now and get a load of waffle that is not going to answer these questions, it is not good enough. Parents, teachers and schools need proper, clear answers. They are the ones who know how the children act. They know the children inside and out. Yet, when the special educational needs organisers, SENOs, come in, they do not listen to that. Clearly, this is a decision from the top down. What is the reason for the pause? I hope I get an answer to that question.

I welcome the group from Scoil Eoin Naofa in County Westmeath. I hope they enjoy their trip to Leinster House. It is always great for schools to visit.

The Senator raised a number of matters. The 1 October deadline was to make sure that we had better sight of the number of children who need special educational supports within the school system, and that we would have better planning for that. One week after my appointment last year, I brought back the date from 1 February to 1 October. We are also engaging with every and any family who contacted the NCSE since 1 October, and working with those families to ensure their needs are met. The 1 October date was to give a sight of this. A number of families contacted us after 1 October, and we are continuing to engage clearly with those families.

Right across the education system, work that is going on in schools. As well as anybody else in these Houses, I understand what is going on with the school communities, the leadership in the school communities, the SNAs, the teachers and all who make up the school communities. We are working day in and day out to do the very best for the children in the schools. There are some remarkable stories and remarkable examples of best practice that I have seen in the last while across the country.

The NCSE is charged with providing for special educational needs. It is important to make one point. We are setting out to do the right thing. I firmly believe this applies to my own position and right across the Government. We have had many detailed discussions, not just this weekend, but every week as to how we are going to ensure that the need out there, which is constantly growing, is met.

The 1,700 SNAs will be employed from 1 September 2026. There are no questions and no ifs or buts. It is in the budget for it. All mainstream, special schools and special classes will see an increase in the number of the SNAs who are employed in each sector. We have to accept that and understand it. On scapegoating, politicians and Ministers will take that but those who are within the National Council for Special Education, SENOs and those teams are working to the best of their ability to give the information back. We have now paused the decisions that were made because we are doing a complete review of it. Before any further decisions are taken, we have to have clear understandings in terms of a number of schools that have lost a number of SNAs and get the reasons for that. We will update the Houses immediately when we have that. We started discussions on that yesterday and there are a number of meetings this morning and into the afternoon today.

We are very serious about making sure about this. I understand the families. I have met the families and the students, not just across the country in my role over the past 12 months but right throughout my political journey. I have been engaged in special education and have been working on behalf of families. I continue to do that. I genuinely believe that all who are concerned about it have a very clear understanding of what we want to do, including the National Council for Special Education, the Department for education, me , the Minister, Deputy Naughton on her appointment in November and, prior to that, the Minister, Deputy McEntee. We want to do the right thing by every child. If we are investing properly in primary and post-primary education, it will lead to the best outcomes for those children into the future.

The Senator knows my bona fides on this matter, but I assure her that we are taking the issues on it desperately seriously. She mentioned the school and classroom. There are over 300 special classes, which are months earlier than last year. A number of additional special classes will be announced across the country over the next weeks and months. Every single one of them will be operational and populated by children who need extra educational support for their time in primary and post-primary school.

I thank the Minister of State. I hear what he is saying, but when the Taoiseach himself says that schools are used to appealing, it should not have to get to that point. Schools should not have to appeal these decisions. What happens to those appeals now while it is paused? Are they going to go through? Are those SNAs still going to be in the schools in the mainstream classes? That is the issue. The schools need SNAs. They need SNAs in the ASD classes, but also in the mainstream classes. It should not get to this point where the parents and the whole community are so outraged that they put so much pressure on the Government. Thank God they did because this would not have stopped at all. There would have been no pause had this not been so opposed by parents and across the whole of Ireland.

The issue is that we are saying that we want kids to have the education and all the supports, yet we are silently undermining all of that by removing the mainstream SNAs into a different post. That is not valuing our SNAs, or they work that they do. They do critical work. Every single one of us knows the work that they do. They go above and beyond for each child. They nurture the child. It does not just impact the children who have the additional needs in the classroom. It impacts the whole classroom. All the children will suffer. What happens now to the schools that appealed? Are their appeals going to go through, are they paused or are they going to be reinstated back into the class?

In relation to the value of the SNAs, absolutely. When I started out on my political journey, it was people who were on community employment, CE, schemes who were providing the SNA support within schools. A decision was taken by the now Taoiseach, then the Minister for education, back in 1997 or 1998 about SNAs. We have grown that to almost 25,000 SNAs across this country. In any comparison with any of the other developed countries in Europe or elsewhere, we are way ahead in terms of the support we are giving into classrooms and to make sure the most vulnerable are getting it. The redeployment scheme will be in operation from 1 September. Any SNA who is being redeployed from one school will have an opportunity to redeploy. That scheme is in place. That scheme has been worked through over the past 18 months or so with the unions and all concerned. That redeployment scheme will be in place.

On the work we have to do, we have paused because we listened very carefully to the concerns. I spoke to principals, parents and SNAs right across the country - not just in my own area in Cork North-West - over the weekend and prior to that. In engagements this week on Monday, we met a number of school principals. They outlined the challenges that they have within the schools. The appeals system is there to make sure that anybody who is dissatisfied with a decision or if they have further information, that they can submit to the National Council for Special Education. It is a robust appeals system. All those decisions are being looked at. Right now, everything is being paused. We want to be very clear when we have that done what the process will be. The integrity of the process is important as well.

Over many years, the National Council for Special Education has delivered special education and reviewed cases. When care needs move on from primary school to post-primary school, we must make sure that the SNA or the support is given to the most vulnerable in their school settings. Everything we are doing is for the child within the school setting to make sure they are getting the best access to the education. We have to look at the outcomes for children and the supports they will get in primary school and post-primary school. It is not the case that it is the school community; it is always the students who we have at the very heart of it. I am desperately passionate about making sure that the very core of our systems and the integrity of the systems, which have been there for quite some time, are targeted towards the children. We will see the provision of that right across.

I thank the Minister of State.

I have allowed latitude on that because it is an issue of such gravity at the moment. I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response. I thank the Senator for raising this matter.