Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn. I thank the Deputies for giving me this opportunity to outline the position in relation to the special needs assistant, SNA, scheme generally and also in relation to the particular school mentioned by them.

As the Deputies will be aware, the previous Government introduced a cap of 10,575 on the total number of SNA posts. This is a significant number of posts and represents an increase on the number of posts allocated in recent years. It is considered that, with equitable and careful management and distribution of these resources, there will be sufficient posts to provide access to SNA support for all children who require such care support to attend school in accordance with departmental criteria.

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is responsible, through its network of local special educational needs organisers, SENOs, for allocating special needs assistants, SNAs, to schools to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE operates within the Department's criteria in allocating such support which now includes a requirement for them to have regard to the overall cap on numbers.

The priority criteria for the allocation of SNA posts include ensuring that the minimum SNA to special class ratio is maintained in special schools and special classes; ensuring support for children with incontinence issues; ensuring those schools which require full day cover for children receive full day cover; deferring the allocation of additional SNA supports to schools for junior infant pupils for whom behaviour is cited as the rationale for SNA support, other than in cases of well documented extremely challenging or dangerous behaviour; prioritising schools which have enrolled pupils with newly diagnosed care needs and which do not have any SNA support; and encouraging the effective use of SNA posts, for example, where two or more posts have been deployed in a single classroom. To distribute SNA posts fairly across the school system, it will be important for the NCSE to ensure that schools do not have an over-allocation of SNA posts, as this could prevent them from allocating SNAs to children with care needs in other schools.

I understand the school referred to by the Deputy currently has 532 pupils enrolled, including three classes for autism, which have an enrolment of 17 children. The NCSE reviewed SNA staffing levels in St. Senan's in June 2010. As a result of this review, 13 SNAs were sanctioned along with the three teachers to cater for 17 pupils in the autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit. A further 8.5 full-time SNA posts, one infant post and ten hours were allocated to the school to support children in the mainstream. This gives the school a total number of 21.5 SNA posts, one infant post and ten hours. This level of support has been determined by the NCSE to take into account the significant care needs of the children.

The previous allocation, prior to this review of SNA posts, had been 17 SNA posts for the 17 pupils in the ASD unit, ten full-time SNA posts and two infant posts, and ten hours were allocated to the school to support children in the mainstream. The revised allocation of 13 SNAs for the three ASD classes will still provide an exceptionally high level of SNA support for these pupils and will still equate to an SNA to pupil ratio of one SNA per 1.3 pupils in these classes. Even taking into account the fact that the children in ASD classes have very significant care needs, this is a very high level of support. The current recommended SNA ratio for special class groups, as outlined in Department of Education and Skills circular 0038/10, is a ratio of two SNAs per special class group of six children for children with ASD. The NCSE has also advised it considers there are sufficient SNA posts to cater for all the children in mainstream.

The school has appealed the decision of the NCSE and I understand the NCSE SENO and a senior SENO will meet the school in the coming days to discuss its appeal and its SNA allocation for the coming school year.

Where schools have had a reduction in their level of SNA allocation or have not received the level of SNA support they feel is sufficient to cater for the care needs of pupils, the NCSE may review the level of care support. However, whereas I understand that schools may wish to maintain current staffing levels, the NCSE must ensure there is not an over-allocation of SNA posts in schools and ensure there are adequate posts for distribution across the school system. I thank the Deputy once again for raising the matter.

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