Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

The Adjournment matter I am raising concerns special needs assistants. It is correlated because whether we are discussing special needs assistants or mná tí, the Government's priorities are the bankers and millionaires. The Government will toss them a billion euro here and there, but they will take €5 off the mná tí and will remove classroom assistants from children with special needs. That is the issue I wish to discuss. It is proposed to cut 1,200 special needs assistants who will be made redundant by the end of March. Those are the estimated figures. I am asking the Minister not to proceed with these cuts because the SNAs are needed. They are required because they provide supports to children with special needs who wish to fulfil their educational potential. The children concerned have been assessed and it has been decided that they need additional supports. We are talking about children with various conditions, including autism spectrum, ADHD and dyslexia. In some cases, SNAs were withdrawn from children with Down's syndrome. It is a scandalous situation which has a direct impact not only on jobs, which will cause massive hardship, but also on extremely young and vulnerable children.

Cuts to special needs supports are not only horribly cruel but will also seriously impair these children's education for years to come. This is all being done in the name of saving money. At the moment we do not have clear figures as to how many SNA posts have been lost and how many more are about to go. Some 403 special needs assistants are employed in County Donegal alone. Like every other SNA across the State, they deserve to know whether their jobs are secure. Neither do we know if further cuts to SNAs will occur in the middle of the school year, or if children will even have a special needs assistant until the end of the year.

The Minister should get his head around the fact that making blind cuts to education will not save money. It may save a few cent today, but it will cost euro in future. We are talking about children, not statistics or numbers that are churned out of a computer. They have a right to be educated in an appropriate environment with the appropriate support to suit their needs.

I am seeking clarity on how many SNAs have been sacked by the Government in recent months and how many are about to be sacked. Will the Government listen to my pleas on behalf of SNAs across the State, as well as children with special needs, their parents and teachers? The Government should get its priorities right and support these children. When proclaiming the Irish Republic, the leaders of this country talked about cherishing all the children of the nation equally. Let us get our priorities right and invest in our children's future. We should not try to save a buck here and there, while at the same time paying the money saved into the banks and for bankers' wages. The Government's priorities are ridiculous.

The Minister and Senator Ó Domhnaill have infuriated me by saying that mná tí will welcome getting €300 less this year than last year, after all the cuts they have had to go through. I am annoyed and am sorry for expressing my anger, but this is a very important issue. I am a father with young children. Thank God none of them has been diagnosed with special needs, but none of us knows what the future holds. No matter what learning difficulties children are born with, they should have the same rights and opportunities of access to education as anybody else. That is what goes to the core of this motion.