Beverley Flynn (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I am very pleased to speak on this issue tonight. As my colleague outlined, St. Anthony's national school in my home town of Castlebar caters for children with mild general learning difficulties. The children also have physical, emotional and behavioural difficulties. There are 40 pupils, six full-time teachers, three part-time teachers and 13 SNAs. It is a county-wide school, not only for pupils in my home town. It deals with pupils from Achill to Ballyhaunis in a county some 120 miles in diameter.

A report reviewing the position of the SNAs in the school was carried out and will be presented tomorrow, along with an official decision from the National Council for Special Education. The recommendation will be that four SNAs will be cut from the school. It will retain the current number of teachers, but a cut of four SNAs, to be effective by Easter, is simply unacceptable.

A review of this school also took place in March 2007 using similar criteria. At the time, only two short years ago, the current level of SNAs was approved. There were 39 pupils in the school at the time, whereas there are 40 there today. Of those 40 pupils, it is worth bearing in mind that ten are autistic, three are visually impaired, two have cerebral palsy, one is deaf, two have hearing impairments, three have epilepsy, two are grossly obese, one is in a wheelchair, one has high anxiety and nine have dyslexia. They also have behavioural difficulties, multi-sensory problems, personal care needs, one child has attention deficit hyperactive disorder, ADHD, another child has brittle bone syndrome and there are children from five nationalities in the school.

I am very uncomfortable with the independent review process carried out by the National Council for Special Education in this case and I am very uncomfortable with independent studies carried out at arm's length from the Department. When such decisions are taken, the flak comes on politicians although we have had no input. I do not like this and such reviews should be carried out by the Department of Education and Science where, at least, as politicians, we can answer for the decisions taken. It is completely unacceptable that any change would occur during the middle of the year. To take away four SNAs during the middle of a year is simply not acceptable. It is also very disappointing that when this decision becomes official tomorrow, the only avenue open to the school is an appeal process. This school should not have to go through an appeal process because it should be treated differently.

SNAs in a special needs school fulfil a different role from those in mainstream schools. They are not simply SNAs, but also classroom assistants. The SNAs in this school have first aid skills and sign language, some have braille skills, they have completed crisis prevention courses and two of the SNAs drive the school bus. Many of the SNAs provide a bus escort service in the school from 7.15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Such is the dedication of the staff.

A whole school evaluation was carried out some time ago for this school. It received a fantastic result and the Department can check this fact. The school had been informed that one blind child is entitled to 0.25 of an SNA. That is an absolutely crazy decision and it is completely unacceptable that such a determination could result from any review. Ten autistic children have been allocated to four SNAs and one special class has been allocated one SNA. I appeal to the Minister of State to bring the message to the Minister for Education and Science to treat special needs schools differently from mainstream schools and to reverse this decision because it is simply not acceptable.

See this speech in context