Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The short version of the Minister of State's answer is that the Department will look at this matter in a few years. I am trying to imagine an alternative discussion. Imagine the UCD course did not exist. We might figure out exactly what we are asking SNAs to do before we design a course. The course is very beneficial. There were difficulties with accreditation and we had many debates about that but that is not fundamentally the issue. The existence of the course is all very well but the place to start should have been the criteria. I fully agree that there has been no impact in the quality but some of this is about special needs assistants' sense of their role and its future. As we continue to expand the number of SNAs, we need to ask what shape that role will take. To try to include this issue with public sector pay talks just rolls it on much further and puts the cart before the course. We need an independent review in advance of that to inform those talks.

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