Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth
Recruitment and Retention of Special Needs Assistants: Discussion
2:00 am
Ms Caroline Cockerill:
At the moment, it very much focuses on complex care needs, which is important, but there are a lot more needs presenting in schools now. There are a lot more invisible disabilities and those kinds of disabilities have a great impact on mental health. The criteria need to be widened because SNAs are not just dealing with children with complex care needs anymore; they are dealing with a wide breadth of needs across schools.
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