Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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There was alarm in the schools that received a review where there was going to be a cut in the SNA allocation. The reason there was alarm was that the principals, teachers and SNAs realised that the cut to their SNA allocation meant they would have to try to manage on a much smaller number and they knew with the number of students in their schools that they could not do so. There were students in those schools who had SNA access and suddenly the schools were notified the allocation was being cut. It is up to the principal to allocate the SNAs. If we trust them to do that, we should trust them to tell us when they need a certain allocation and not cut it.

Senator Scahill asked about the role of the SENOs and that was to be my next question. For a time when I was teaching I was SEN co-ordinator and I knew the SENO well and the SENO knew the children in the school, including those transitioning from primary to secondary school and knew their parents. I talk to parents now and they do not know who the SENO is. There is no interaction. It was said that there are 120 SENOs and there are 3,700-----