Ms Linda O'Sullivan:

The children cannot access the curriculum. I had the pleasure last night with some of the team here of speaking to Involve Autism, which has done phenomenal work for its children and the children in Dublin 6W. This group said that, without the support of SNAs, its children would not have got through mainstream education. We hear time and again reference to the circular on care needs. All of us in this room know we do far more than that and, without us, the children would not be able to access the curriculum or attend school. We saw that, as Ms Jordan mentioned, throughout Covid-19 and trying to work with these children through lockdowns.

The crux of the matter, and at times I feel the Department of Education forgets this, is that the reason we are here is for the children with whom we work. We want to give the best care possible to those children. All we want is for them to be able to come to school and be supported by an SNA. The respect element comes in when we are left time and again waiting to find out whether we have jobs and whether children have school places in September. Without our crucial role in a classroom, many children in this country would not have a school place, and that is a fact. Most parents, if not all, would back us on that.