John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I invite the Minister to visit the stated school and tell the staff and pupils what he has told me. He has confirmed the need for everything they have been allocated. The Minister says there is a roll-back on one special needs assistant, SNA. Either the Minister or someone acting on his behalf has looked at the criteria and found there is still a difficulty.

Cutbacks in teaching numbers in a school come into force the following September. The current cutbacks will be rolled out next Easter. The school is expected to cope with this situation in the middle of the school year, when it is already coping with 13 SNAs. That is not acceptable.

Some 20,000 people have joined a Facebook campaign and 5,000 signatures have been collected. I ask the Minister to look at this matter again.

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