Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As I said and has been repeated since, I congratulate Fórsa and the individual SNAs who have brought this conversation to heart of the Oireachtas and demanded responses from everybody in the Oireachtas, from every political party, from every political entity and from the Minister and the Minister of State as well. This is to their credit.

The opening remarks placed great emphasis on the classification of the SNA role as being part of a scheme. I had previous conversations with Ms O’Sullivan in meetings about this issue. It is front and centre as part of the problem. While the Minister of State gave a level of comfort regarding the work that is ongoing to deal with the essential accreditation we spoke about and the basic requirements, I was a bit taken aback by her apparent surprise that the classification of the role as a scheme was problematic. She said that it was dealt with by circular, as if circulars cannot change, evolve or be reissued. Therefore, the emphasis the SNAs have placed on this scheme, when compared with the response from the Minister of State, is the biggest thing I took away from this session.

I ask Mr. Pike and Ms O’Sullivan to flesh out the issue concerning the scheme and its classification. Regarding my comments around the late date for the allocation of SNAs, namely, 31 May, the issue of CPD that teachers get but SNAs do not, July provision, the different rates of pay and the individual stories in schools, that we also know about, do all these issues lead back to the lack of certainty found in these roles and to the lack of respect for them? It is not difficult to ask a school to respect an SNA, but it is hypocritical of the Department to demand respect for SNAs if it is not respecting the people in these roles itself.