Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The SNAs are there for the care needs of the children. That is their purpose. We can measure the number of extra children who can be in a mainstream classroom because they have a special needs assistant. The teacher is the educational professional. The children are given the SNA support in order that they can benefit from the professional teaching and have their care needs attended to, so that they are on an even playing pitch with the other children in terms of educational opportunities. We have very good measurements of literacy and numeracy which show that Ireland has been improving in those areas. They are good for a variety of reasons, one of which is that children have SNA support who otherwise would not be there to benefit from the opportunities to learn and improve literacy and numeracy. We can use this measure for educational outcome in other areas of my budget. In this area it is a question of being in mainstream classes or in special classes in mainstream schools, or in special schools. We should be able to give figures on attendance and retention. This is one of the areas on educational outcomes where the input of the SNA is primarily to facilitate children to be in the classroom to benefit from educational opportunities.