Mr. Enda McGorman:

We talk about our special schools, in particular, schools with additional classes and the number of SNAs, bus escorts and everyone else added to the staff. School principals and deputy principals are only allocated on the number of whole-time teaching positions. It is completely blind to all the other work that schools have to do. A special school could have a staff of 40 SNAs and 50 bus escorts and all of this has to be managed. No recognition is given, either in the staffing allocation or, indeed, in pay. The pay scale of principals in these schools does not reflect the number of staff on roll; it just reflects the number of mainstream teachers. This is always very low because the number of pupils in these schools is low but the staff need is massively high. That has not been recognised by the system and it is a massive issue. It would be the same issue in our special schools as in mainstream schools with high numbers of children with autism spectrum disorder, ASD.