Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In his final reply I ask the Minister to outline why neither he nor one of his Ministers of State was available to be present in the Dáil last Wednesday night for the debate on the Private Members' motion.

I would be pleased if the Minister could provide some evidence to back up his case. So far we have seen nothing in that regard from him other than an assertion that there has been no cut. We had the same assertion from the Minister and the Tánaiste here in the Dáil that there was no cut in resource teachers and we saw the about-turn the Minister did on that when he admitted there was a cut and he brought forward 500 additional teachers. He is still keeping up this pretence without offering any evidence to show it is not having an impact on the ground. I ask him to enlighten the Dáil today as to what the average hours each child, who avails of an SNA, will get in September as opposed to what it was last September. That might clarify whether students are getting fewer hours' access to an SNA as a result of the 10% increase in demand.

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