Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister for that. I have raised SNAs with her before. They do incredibly important work. There has been progress on recruiting them but we do not have enough of them. We discussed during priority questions my expectation that there would be 23,600 in schools this September but now the indication is there will be 23,179. Is that related to retirement of other attrition within the system? I wonder how that happens.

I have a number of examples of SENOs around the country saying they have been advised that a circular is due to issue very soon which will set out a new review process and, while that is awaited, all reviews are paused. Will the Minister provide an update on that new circular and what it is intended to do?