Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I refer to the comment of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, that any child who needs an SNA will have one. He stated this emphatically in the same week that I received representations from a headmistress and a parent whose child has unstable type 1 diabetes. The child had the services of an SNA for 32 hours a week but, in the wisdom of the Department of Health and Children officials who came to his school, this was reduced to 20 hours a week. The child has been attending a paediatrician, is known to the service and using the public health system. It is supported by his GP and the headmistress that his condition is unstable and requires frequent monitoring. His SNA has received specialist training in recognising hypoglycaemia and hyperglycaemic attacks. What are the criteria in assessing whether there should be a reduction in the number of hours in a case such as this? If the child needs an SNA owing to a condition such as type 1 diabetes which is unstable, perhaps because he ate the wrong foods, is going through a growth spurt or took extra exercise such that the condition is difficult to manage, how can the system allow the number of hours to be reduced from 32 to 20? SNAs were never trained to be security guards. In this regard, the only point made was that the officials were not interested in the child's cognitive abilities, only in whether he could be of harm to himself or others. This is a specialist need. How can anyone decide what the number of hours should be, given that his condition is unstable?