George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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I wish to raise the issue of the appeals' process in the allocation of special needs assistants, SNAs, in the context of the treatment meted out to St. Aidan's primary school in Enniscorthy in Wexford. St. Aidan's is one of the largest DEIS band 1 vertical primary schools in Ireland. It is exceptional in scale for a primary school, with 861 pupils. It has seven special classes, 36 mainstream classes and 76 teachers and has been awarded 15.75 SNAs. The school currently has 54 pupils attending the seven special classes, all operating at level 3 support. The vast majority of the pupils here have care need plans and require regular access to an SNA. Of these pupils, 38 have a single diagnosis and 17 of the pupils have multiple different diagnoses, including general learning disability, autism spectrum disorder, ASD, speech and language disorder and severe intellectual disorder. Five pupils within the school are type 1 diabetics. There are also children who suffer from social and emotional behavioural difficulties, and children with anaphylaxis, epilepsy and physical disabilities. There are 36 pupils in mainstream classes with a diagnosis of ASD at different levels and as of yet the SNA allocation that covers both the special classes and the mainstream settings remains unchanged at 15.75 SNAs. Therein lies the difficulty.

The school appealed the outcome of the SNA review it requested. It was told that there would be no change to the SNA allocation and that the whole school SNA allocation for 2025-26 would continue at 15.75 SNAs. The letter the school received from a principal officer in the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, stated that this decision can be appealed. The details of the appeals process can be found online. In the letter, the NCSE advised the school to seek a rationale for the outcome prior to the submission of any appeal. Therein lies the problem.

Those in the school tried up and down and back and forward. They went to the local special educational needs organiser, SENO, and they went to the regional manager of the NCSE. They also went to the NCSE itself but nobody could give the school the rationale. They were encouraged to seek the rationale to add to their submission of their appeal. There is a ten-day period to appeal. The school went numerous times to the regional manager, the SENO and the NCSE. The NCSE came back with no clarity, no advice and no direction. No guidance could be provided by the staff there as to how they would access the rationale for the SNA review. In the end the school had to submit its appeal to the NCSE without any access to the rationale that it was encouraged by the very same NCSE to acquire in order to submit the appeal.

This is a major school with massive support requirements. The teaching staff and the SNAs are put to the pin of their collar to provide a decent atmosphere and a decent schooling for the myriad children in the school who have additional needs. It simply is not good enough. I will acknowledge that I contacted the head of the NCSE and he came back to me after a couple of days to say it would be investigating the matter. To put the staff through the wringer on this and not supply the rationale that the school was requested to seek is simply not good enough in the context of the stress that already exists within these schools.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Lawlor for raising this important issue on behalf of St. Aidan's school community in Enniscorthy, and not just on behalf of the student or the students attending school in special classes, but indeed the entire school community, including teachers, parents, special education teachers and SNAs. I hear the Deputy's frustration. His frustration was mirrored earlier by one of the Deputy's constituency colleagues who also raised this with the Tánaiste today on the floor of the House. In case the Deputy missed that debate, I will just say that the Tánaiste committed to raising this with the Minister for education directly, asking her to arrange that either the Minister herself or the NCSE would make contact with that Deputy. I will certainly add Deputy Lawlor to that list to ensure he gets that same information and that same contact. I am very glad to hear that the Deputy has been in contact directly with the head of the NCSE and that he is working proactively to help to resolve this from a rationale perspective to give the information the school wants and should have gotten much easier than this. I appreciate that the issue here is not just for St. Aidan's and that the issue is with the process. I will absolutely provide that feedback to the Minister for education.

As the Deputy is aware, the National Council for Special Education has responsibility for co-ordinating and advising on the education provision and care support for children and young people with special educational needs in our schools, including the allocation of SNA support to schools. In relation to the appeals process itself, on completion of an SNA review the NCSE communicates the outcome to a school. If the school is not satisfied, it may submit an appeal of the outcome to the NCSE. The school has ten days to do so. Information, including guidance on the appeals process, is available on the NCSE website. The NCSE is currently processing a number of appeals and the outcomes of these will be communicated to schools shortly.

The Department and the NCSE are committed to delivering an education system that is of the highest quality, where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential. I will provide the Deputy's specific feedback on the rationale. I note this is what was advised in the information on the website to show this is how one should submit the appeal.

George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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The advice was in the letter.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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To be told that this is the correct way to be able to gain the information and then to be frustrated through the process and not get it, I can understand that this is not efficient for either the school or the NCSE. It does not set the school up for success in terms of being able to put forward a coherent and comprehensive appeal. I appreciate what the Deputy is saying in that this information should have been made available in a timely fashion to the school.

George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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I thank the Minister of State for the response. Obviously it is not her core area so I understand the difficulty she finds herself in. I am holding the letter from a principal officer which was sent to say that there would be no change. Within the letter the school is advised to seek the rationale. I appreciate that the Minister of State said herself that this issue does not apply just to St. Aidan's school in Enniscorthy.

It is a huge primary school, particularly when one considers all the supports that are required. A letter was sent to the school informing it to seek a rationale for what was required while, at the same time, no one within that organisation, from the bottom to the top, could tell it where to get that rationale. From the conversations I had with the deputy principal and the head of special education teachers in the school when they visited me at my constituency office in Wexford, I know that they tried everything multiple times but no one within the organisation could provide them with the rationale, which seems to be a key component of the appeals process. What does this say about the entire appeals process from the start? Are all schools advised to seek the rationale? The fact that the school could not even be told where to get the rationale and the regional manager said he was seeking guidance indicates to me that there is a bit of chaos within the NCSE when it comes to processing the appeals system. It throws something of a blanket over the appeals process and suggests that it is a matter of just ticking a box to say “Computer says “No””. It does not have any rationale available despite the fact that it tells schools to look for it. The notion that no one within the organisation knows where to go to find it is quite baffling. I am sure the Minister of State will agree with me in that regard.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and giving us this opportunity to discuss it on the floor of the House. The NCSE allocation and review processes are essential to ensure that SNA support is provided where it is most needed. An appropriate appeal mechanism is an important part of the review process, and this has always been the case. I fully appreciate that schools need to be given whatever information needed in order to put forward a thorough appeal. If schools are not satisfied with the outcome of a SNA review, they can then submit the appeal. As I said, details on how to do that are available online. The NCSE is available to support schools and discuss the deployment of SNA resources allocated to support their students.

With regard to the appeal, it might be helpful to outline some of what is taken into account in terms of the rationale. Special education needs organisers engage with schools, including school leaders, teachers and SNAs, and a national review panel reviews decisions to ensure consistency across the country. Among the factors taken into account are changes in student numbers, changes in individual care needs and students moving from primary to post-primary schools. Sometimes, those factors form part of the rationale. While I do not know the specific details in the case of St. Aidan’s Parish School, the information should have been made available to it in a timely fashion.