Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was fortunate to work for seven years for a charity that cares for children with special needs. It is not fair to characterise - I am not making this accusation about Deputy Wallace - all children with special needs as having behavioural difficulties; a significant number of them do not. The professional assessment and conclusion drawn by the SENO should be the main factor in determining whether young people need SNA support. It is not and has never been the intention of this Government to reduce the support available to special needs children within our school system. This circular is, first, clarifying the role of the SNAs in terms of their function within the classroom setting and, second, ensuring that those children who need SNA support from the first day they enter the school environment have that support available to them. As their needs evolve and change and, hopefully, diminish, that SNA support can be reduced - there is nothing wrong with that - and those supports can be allocated to other children coming into the system who might be more deserving of them at that time.

See this speech in context