Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

Before the election the Taoiseach not only promised to maintain special needs assistance provision in education but he also supported a motion in this House to increase funding for special needs assistants, SNAs, this year. In September, parents of children with special needs who were starting the new school year were told that there would be a 10% reduction in the number of special needs assistants. In addition, the Government unilaterally decided to withhold 475 special needs assistants from the country's classrooms.

It took only months for the Taoiseach to abandon promises such as no cuts to special needs assistance, and none of the promises he made in February came with small print. After eight months he has settled into his role in Government. It is a Government that is dismissive of the Oireachtas and of anybody who challenges it. The Taoiseach cannot cover up the enormous and growing scale of his broken promises. Schools throughout the country will be on mid-term break next week. I am told by parents, teachers and special needs assistants that the special needs provision and the allocation of special needs assistants are still very inflexible and that there is a huge disconnect between what is happening on the ground and what we hear officially from the Government and the Department of Education and Skills. I have met many parents, teachers and special needs assistants who have articulated this and the fact that real need is being deprived in our schools and children who deserve special needs assistants are not getting that provision.

During a previous Leaders' Questions the Taoiseach promised that every child who required special needs assistance provision would get it. That is not happening. Can the Taoiseach outline if the 475 posts that were withheld have been allocated to children who are in desperate need of such provision, so they can have their constitutional right to an education?

See this speech in context