Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

The National Council for Special Education is the professional body which through its locally based SENOs assesses individuals referred to it and comes to a professional conclusion whether a particular child qualifies for support. It is not the function of the Department of Education and Skills in order to prevent it becoming open to manipulation and abuse as we have seen in the past with other schemes. The professional assessment is not made by politicians or by civil servants who have a generalist education and do not have the necessary expertise. The number of SNAs has increased by almost 1,000% since they were established.

See this speech in context