Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)

I apologise for being late. I was speaking in the Chamber. I read all the opening statements. I have been a primary school teacher and have been working in schools for nearly 20 years. I commend our SNAs. There is no way I could have done my job without the SNAs who were present. They are fantastic. In many schools I saw a lot of SNAs with those 72 hours not put to good use. Myself and my teacher colleagues always encouraged that it should be used for CPD and not for unnecessary meetings, laminating, cutting pieces of paper, cleaning or whatever.

I am curious to hear from the Embrace Autism representatives their opinion on whether there are any gaps that still exist in the training of SNAs when it comes to working with autistic children.