Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I welcome an opportunity to provide clarity for people in this regard. Three things are happening at the moment. First, myself and the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, have made very clear that we will change the timelines by which SNAs are allocated. It is not good enough that on the day before they start school, children do not know whether they have an SNA or not. We are making it very clear that timelines will align with teacher allocations. Schools will still have time at the beginning of the year to identify whether there is an additional need and to make that further appeal. However, at any time throughout the year, if a dynamic in a school changes and if a child comes to the school with an additional need, there will always be an opportunity for a school to make that appeal.

Second, we want to ensure a redeployment scheme is put in place. It has always been the case that SNAs are redeployed. If the need is not in a school for a particular SNA, they move to other schools. Unfortunately, at the moment they have to resign and are made unemployed. They then have to reapply to school. It is not efficient and it is not fair on SNAs. We are changing that to have a more efficient redeployment scheme.

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