Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This particular question does not necessarily deal with that issue. However, I am aware that there is a question on today's Order Paper on the matter of isolation rooms, if we get to it. All I can say is that the SNA posts are allocated by the NCSE only where there is a valid application submitted by a school in respect of a child with qualifying needs and where the needs of the child cannot be supported by the existing SNA allocation in the school. On some occasions, but not all, the view of particular schools was that an SNA could facilitate the support services required for a new challenged pupil in addition to an existing pupil. That meant that one SNA was now looking after the needs of two pupils. This was raised at a meeting of my parliamentary party. What occurred was presented by the parent of the original pupil as a 50% reduction in SNA support. There are times when allocation, presentation and perception can mean different things to different people. As far as the school in question was concerned, the SNA support was capable of being shared by two people. I have asked the NCSE to develop a new model for the allocation of resources because the number of SNAs has grown from approximately 2,000 when the system was first introduced to nearly 11,000 now. Such exponential growth simply cannot continue.

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