Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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848. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills how an appeal can submitted against SNA hours allocated to a child in a mainstream school; to outline the appeal process; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19210/25]

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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849. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the criteria a child must meet to access SNA supports; if this is reflected in SNA allocations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19211/25]

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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850. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if SNA supports are provided to children with behavioural issues; if this is reflected in SNA allocations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19212/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 848, 849 and 850 together.

This government is fully committed to supporting children with special educational needs to fulfil their full potential and the Programme for Government makes a number of commitments to deliver on this objective. The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has responsibility for coordinating and advising on the education provision for children with special educational needs.

Special needs assistants (SNAs) play a central role in the successful inclusion of students with additional and significant care needs in schools. They help ensure that these students can access an education to enable them to achieve their best outcomes and reach their full potential.

We have been steadily building on the number of SNAs in our education system. At the end of the 2024 school year there was over 22,000 SNAs in schools. Budget 2025 provides for an additional 1,600 SNA posts nationwide. This is the highest ever annual increase.

The NCSE continue to prioritise the full allocation of the additional 1,600 SNA posts provided in Budget 2025 to schools to ensure that those children with the highest level of need get the highest level of support. Allocations will be confirmed by the NCSE to schools in the coming weeks. The NCSE also publish SNA allocations on their

SNAs are allocated to schools as a school-based resource. Principals/board of managements deploy SNAs within schools to meet the care support requirements of the children enrolled whom SNA support has been allocated. This provides schools flexibility in how the SNA support is utilised.

If a school feels like it has insufficient SNA support to meet the needs of its students an application can be submitted to the NCSE requesting a review of its allocation. Detailed information on the NCSE's SNA review process is published on the NCSE's Each case is individually assessed and is based on the student profile of each school.

Some review requests can be concluded as an office-based exercise, whilst others require a school to be visited in order to observe the current deployment of SNA support in the school setting.

The timeframe for concluding a review can vary depending on the school context or the nature of the information provided.

Following the outcome of the review, the NCSE can make a local special educational needs officer (SENO) available to the school to discuss their current deployment of SNA supports in the school and to put these supports to the best advantage of the students. NCSE in-school support is also available to schools to offer further guidance and support.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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851. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a review of a school’s (details supplied) SNA allocation is valid given the timing of the review; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19213/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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This government is fully committed to supporting children with special educational needs to fulfil their full potential and the Programme for Government makes a number of commitments to deliver on this objective.

As the matter raised relates to a National Council for Special Education (NCSE) process. I have forwarded your query to the NCSE for their attention and direct reply.

Deputies are also welcome to raise such matters with the NCSE directly through their dedicated Oireachtas query line at oireachtasqueries@ncse.ie.

Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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852. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a special class or ASD unit can be opened in a school (details supplied); her department’s exceptions process for funding of modular buildings to allow mainstream schools to obtain space in order to open special classes and ASD units; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19214/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Department has a significant modular accommodation programme in place to assist schools in the provision of additional capacity, including facilitating the establishment of special classes.

This programme involves the use of Project Management supports which is designed to enable the accommodation to be provided as quickly as possible and help ease the administrative workload for school authorities in relation to the management and delivery of projects.

The use of the Department’s Modular Accommodation Framework also assists in ensuring lead in periods for procurement of modular accommodation are minimised to the greatest extent possible. To date, this has worked very well in the education sector and has seen delivery of large scale, high quality modular accommodation to meet the needs of children, particularly those with special educational needs.

The Department of Education and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) have reviewed the forward planning for special education needs (SEN) and highlighted an urgent need for additional SEN classes across the country. In order to respond to this need at pace, my department is progressing urgent building projects that involve the repurposing of existing space in schools for SEN purposes. These projects will ensure that existing school capacity is optimised and that teaching spaces are adaptable and flexible to facilitate a student-centred approach to learning.

Notwithstanding this, I can confirm that my department does provide additional accommodation in the form of modular accommodation to schools that have an urgent requirement for further mainstream or special education needs classrooms. However, additional accommodation for special education needs classes will only be provided to schools that have been sanctioned a class by the NCSE.

I wish to advise the Deputy that my department has no current record of receiving an application for additional accommodation from the school in question.

It is open to the school authority to make an application for additional accommodation through the 'Additional School Accommodation scheme (ASA)' which is available at www.education.ie.