Mr. Shane Lambert:

There was a lot of comfort to be taken from many of the comments. As Mr. Pike said, the concern is the when, the time and how long this will take. To put it from the child's perspective, at the moment, the expectation any child can have when he or she accesses the curriculum and gets the support of an SNA is that the SNA would have three Ds in the junior certificate. That is the expectation. However, the reality on the ground, as shown in my examples, is that they are required to have FETAC level 5 or 6 and they must engage in continuing professional development, CPD. There are disparities with what is happening on the ground throughout the country. We need to standardise that. We need to look towards future-proofing the service. I do not need to labour the point. We know the evolution of special education from 1979 to now. It does not mean it stops here. This could be the beginning of something where we could lead the way and have a world-class service. We are not going to do that if we ponder too much over a minimum qualification when we know the reality on the ground is dramatically different from it.

To respond to a couple of things that were covered around the view of unskilled labour, we have had SNAs on to us in the past week who have been asked to clean fish tanks, clean out lockers, laminate things, mop floors and things like that. This has taken the SNAs away from the role they should have with the children. It breaks down goodwill in the school and damages relationships. A lot of that would be solved by putting in a minimum education qualification which would set the tone of respect they deserve.

While the vast majority of schools have very much come on board and have shown over the years that they have evolved and value their SNAs, this would eliminate the potential in those areas, which are minor but still create significant problems.

On the piece around continuous professional development, how can SNAs continuously develop and look to enhance their role and move with the times when there is no standard from which they are moving or that that standard is so low?