Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Darragh O'Brien and several other Senators again raised the issue of special needs, which was addressed on the Order of Business yesterday. I will repeat some of what I said yesterday. The number of SNA and resource teachers is being maintained at current levels. That is a fact. Owing to budgetary and staffing constraints, the cap on SNAs and resource teachers cannot be increased. The number of valid applications for resource teachers has risen by 12% in the past year. However, the number of posts available cannot be increased. It has been necessary to reduce the allocations to each school and child in receipt of resource teaching hours by 10% compared to the level of support provided last year.

This means a reduction from 85% to 75% of the recommended teaching allocation per child. This is regrettable and hopefully it can be reversed when we restore the national finances to an acceptable level. We are coming from a situation where the country was bankrupt under the previous Government. We are trying to restore our national finances which we are doing quite successfully but it will take time-----