Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

I accept a cap is in place. Recently my colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, tabled a question about the number of special needs assistants employed in County Donegal. He was informed this was not readily available, which seems bizarre. How are these assessments carried out? It appears there are difficulties across the board.

How many of the children assessed have been taken out of DEIS schools? I realise some SNAs are being held back for the September period but the difficulty for families is to try to get into a school in the meantime. This continues to be a problem and we are going to hit crisis levels come September.

See this speech in context