Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is responsible for allocating special needs assistants, SNAs, to schools in accordance with my Department's policy. Over the summer the NCSE has advised all mainstream schools of their SNA allocations in respect of valid applications received by 17 June. The NCSE retained 475 out of the total 10,575 SNA posts available to allocate them to valid applications received since 17 June in respect of cases such as emergencies, appeals, acquired injuries or new school entrants with care needs.

The process of allocating these 475 retained posts has now begun. Approximately 20 of the retained posts have already been allocated, bringing the total number of posts allocated to date to 10,120 for the current school year. The NCSE has advised that it expects approximately 300 of the 475 retained posts to have been allocated to schools by the end of November. A number of posts will be required to be retained for allocation during the remainder of the school year.

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