John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the response. It is 43 years since the minimum standard of education was set for the SNA. In that time, as we know, SNAs have retrained and engaged in continuing professional development. It is time for the conversation around special needs assistants to be reset. My own party has a very proud record in this area, having introduced the SNA. The initial budget was €9 million. It is now into the billions.

I refer to the very interesting paper by the European Journal of Special Needs Education, published in 2020, which looked at learning and support assistants, LSAs, in inclusive education across six countries, including the UK, Austria, Ireland, Bulgaria and Slovakia. What is very interesting is that it is only in Slovakia that SNAs have to have completed the upper secondary level or possess a bachelor's degree in pedagogy, making Slovakia unique in this regard. In addition to a lack of qualification requirements in most countries, there are also limited opportunities for professional development. That is critical. It is key. This is a career. Ireland has a real opportunity to lead a European standard and to raise the standard.

In Slovakia, SNAs are part of the advisory board of the school, which is interesting. That is not exclusive to Slovakia. I do not see any role here for SNAs on the boards of management or in the overall administration of our schools. We are all aware of the range of responsibilities they are given, some of which I excluded in my initial remarks and are entirely inappropriate. I will not list them. The SNAs will have spoken to the Minister of State about them. In the international experience as well as in Ireland, in some schools SNAs collaborate extensively with the school, teachers, management and the board of management, while in other schools they are excluded from a lot of say or participation. We now have an opportunity to reset the narrative in regard to SNAs, to enable them to progress and develop in their careers, and to acknowledge that many of them are far more qualified than the three Ds that qualify them for the SNA course. Will the Minister of State provide a timeline for when the reset of this conversation might take place and engagement with SNAs will begin?

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