Ms Lorraine Dempsey:

I will address the question of the allocation of special needs assistants. There has been a cap of 10,575 SNAs for the past two years. When this cap was first implemented, the NCSE kept back approximately 475 whole-time SNA posts with a view to allocating them later in the year for emergency applications, new applications, assessments and late applications. During the first year, the NCSE, the schools and everyone else had to adapt to a restricted initial application of SNAs. This year there was a recognition that the retention of so many posts was an over-cautious policy. Up to last June, more than 200 whole-time SNA posts had not been allocated. This year the NCSE allocated those posts from the outset so that they were in place in September. We have received fewer complaints from parents about specific SNA allocations this year. Complaints seem to concentrate on the shared access. Some parents still have difficulties with the reductions in their individual schools. While the Government has not imposed a cut on SNA numbers over the past two years, when SNA hours are reduced at a local level, parents view this as a cut. Whether it is a policy decision or not, a cut is a cut as far as parents are concerned. The rebuttal position is that the SNA cap is in place and there are an adequate number of SNAs to meet the demand.

Perspectives vary on SNA support in schools. In the main, parents and children are managing with their level of SNA support. However, the shared access policy for managing support seems to have been pushed forward. This has raised a number of health and safety issues. Special needs assistants have raised the issue of shared access at their annual delegate conference. They have explained it is difficult to run around between two or three different classes in order to look after five children on different floors of a school. It is not working from a logistical point of view in some areas.

The allocation of SNAs depends on the perspective of those who organise the SNAs. The special needs assistance organisers, SENO, are the gatekeepers for the allocations to schools. For example, there are discrepancies in decisions. It can be the case that a full-time SNA could be allocated to a school to care for one child while another child might have shared access with another two children. Parents ask why a child in Limerick has an full-time SNA attending to his or her needs while another child is struggling. They ask why a parent is called in to the school to help look after the care needs of his or her child because the SNA cannot cover the care needs of the three or four children who need help. We do not want the SNA cap to be breached or lowered until the system is allowed to settle down. The new system of allocations has only been in operation for the past 12 months.

The core criteria for the SNA is an issue in particular for children with autism and developmental disabilities. Care needs are the criteria for the allocation of an SNA. These tend to be the physical, hands-on care needs of a child. Some children, by the nature of their disability, cannot access the curriculum and therefore their educational needs are barred by their disability. Their disability does not qualify them for an SNA because they may not have specific care needs such as toileting or assistance with feeding and they may not be a severe flight risk. However, they need someone to guide them in the class while the class teacher is addressing 30 or more pupils. The teacher-pupil ratio has increased over recent years as has the demands on teachers' time. Some parents believe that their children are languishing in the classroom.

We have proposed the use of classroom assistants. Deputy Ó Ríordáin mentioned classroom assistants when he addressed the SNA annual delegate conference. We do not propose them as a resource on top of the current 10,500 SNAs. Many SNAs have, at their own cost, trained themselves to higher levels - to level No. 9. They have developed higher skills than some of the SNAs who possess only the basic levels of educational qualifications. Currently SNAs are not required to have completed the SNA course to become an SNA. Some SNAs may not have even a basic level of skills as there is no mandatory requirement that an SNA should have a first aid certificate or a manual handling certificate. It is up to the school whether it wants to provide funding for an SNA to attend these courses.

We would not regard classroom assistants as being quasi-educationalists. I acknowledge that the teaching unions would not be in favour of having unqualified persons acting in a teaching capacity. However, the role of the assistant would be to facilitate the teacher in addressing the needs which are not strictly care needs. This would free up SNAs - those with lower levels of qualifications - to allow them address the physical care needs of children. There might be an overall reduction in the number of people who have the job title of SNA but some of those people could, with further training, graduate to the role of classroom assistant. This would have a more general job description and role in terms of facilitating and helping the whole class. Much of the SNA job description includes tidying up the classroom and looking after small groups of children. Many of the duties of SNAs have nothing to do with the care needs of the child. In some respects, parents are concerned that SNAs are being used as a whole-school resource while the needs of their children are not being addressed. If a child's needs are being addressed, a parent will not have an issue with what the SNA does outside that time. There are cases where the SNA may be photocopying in the office while the child needs to go to the toilet or needs assistance with getting books out of a school bag.

It very much comes down to how individual schools manage this resource. There are issues that arise which were identified by the SNA section within IMPACT. We concur with many of the findings made by it.

While the criteria relating to special needs assistants revolve around care needs, if there were classroom assistants, these criteria would become more broad-ranging in nature. We are not stating there would be greater direct teaching support as a result. However, teachers would be able to manage SNAs in such a way that they would be able to facilitate children much more in the context of the work they are expected to do in the classroom. Currently, parents can volunteer to read with their children in school in order to help them to develop their literacy skills. However, the job description of SNAs prevents them from doing this. There is something odd about this.