Written answers

Thursday, 23 June 2005

Department of Education and Science

School Staffing

8:00 pm

Photo of Pat RabbittePat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 231: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the reason eight full-time special needs assistants employed at a school (details supplied) in Dublin 24 will be required to present for interview for four full-time and five part-time special needs assistant posts in September 2005 when most of the staff have three years' service with the school; the reason specific purposes contracts have been issued to special needs staff who were informed at the start that their posts would be permanent and pensionable; the reason there are no agreements in place with regard to issues of redundancy for special needs assistants who may be let go after three years' service; the reason the school in question has not been informed of the type of contracts that will be issued to the special needs assistants in September 2005; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21681/05]

Photo of Mary HanafinMary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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There are eight SNAs employed in this school at present, some of whom are catering for the needs of pupils enrolled in special classes attached to the school. The school has sanction for four full-time posts and five part-time posts from next September. My Department has recently issued a letter to schools which have surplus SNA staff that contained guidelines for schools in selecting staff that should be let go. The letter confirmed that the selection criteria for determining whose contract should be terminated will be on a last in, first out, LIFO, basis subject to the contractual position pertaining in schools. This means that, unless the most junior SNA in the school has a written child specific contract that entitles her or him to remain in the school, her or his contract should be terminated on the basis that she or he is the most junior SNA in the school in terms of length of service.

If, however, the school has operated on the basis of employing all SNAs on child specific contracts and offered such contracts to the SNAs, it is the SNA who is attached to the child who has been identified as no longer needing the services of an SNA that should be released. I can also confirm that my Department has recently agreed with the union representing SNAs the issue of compensation payments for SNAs who may be let go after a number of years' service or who may have their posts reduced from full-time to part-time. Details of this agreement will be made available to schools as soon as possible.

An official of my Department has spoken with the principal of the school in question in respect of the issues raised by the Deputy. It appears that the eight SNAs currently employed in the school all had child specific contracts and all of the children in respect of whom those contracts applied will have left the school by the end of this school year. In the circumstances and as it is considered that all of its SNAs were out of contract, the school was proposing to interview for the posts that it has sanction for in September.

It is the case that as some of the SNAs who had child specific contracts have been re-assigned to other children without any change being made to their contract, the school may have been operating a de facto seniority system rather than a child specific contract system. In the circumstances my Department has advised the school to raise the matter with the relevant school management body and to seek advice from that body as to how it should proceed. My Department has also advised the school that it may if it wishes combine the part-time posts to form full-time posts subject to it being satisfied that the needs of the children would be satisfactorily catered for under such an arrangement. I would add that if it is the case that current SNA staff are made redundant or have their posts reduced from full-time posts to part-time posts, the compensation scheme recently agreed with the union representing SNAs will apply.

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