Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is the time of year that Deputies will be receiving correspondence from local schools about teacher and special needs assistant allocations. In my area of Wexford I am already working with St. Fintan's National School in Taghmon about its teacher allocations and Glenbrien National School about the provision of teacher hours. St. Fintan's faces losing a teacher and an administrative principal role despite having more than the required enrolment number this year to retain numbers. Taghmon is a very socially disadvantaged area of Wexford. This raises serious issues about the impact of this loss in the community. In Enniscorthy, Glenbrien National School is allotted 17.98 special education teacher hours for the entire school. This means that only a proportion of vulnerable children can get daily support, leaving others adrift. They are desperately appealing for a review to be carried out on their appeal by the National Council for Special Education. These schools, and parents throughout County Wexford, cannot operate without these extra special needs assistants and extra special education teacher hours. I ask the Taoiseach to raise these issues with his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Foley. If we are all in this together then schools must be functionally resourced to ensure the same.

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