Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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282. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is concerned that the new SNA review process guidelines for 2025-2026 published by the NCSE narrows the definition of 'complex needs' and excludes many behavioural needs; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52632/25]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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283. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is concerned that the new SNA review process guidelines for 2025-2026 published by the NCSE creates an overly limited application window of 15 September to 24 October for review thereby excluding mid-year needs assessments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52633/25]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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285. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will consider a pause on the implementation of the new SNA review process guidelines for 2025-2026 published by the NCSE, until parents, schools, and SNAs are meaningfully consulted; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52635/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 282, 283 and 285 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.

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

My department has been steadily building on the number of SNAs in our education system. This September there will be over 23,000 SNAs allocated to schools, working in our education system committed to supporting and nurturing children with special educational needs, enabling them to achieve their best outcomes and reach their full potential. This is the highest number ever.

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) issues guidance each year to schools regarding SNA reviews and the guidance for 2025/26 school year issued on the 12 September 2025.

It is important to clarify some of the issues raised since publication of the guidelines.

The process for allocating SNAs has been in place since 2014 and is not changing this year. There has been no freeze on SNAs, in fact the number of SNAs in our schools has increased by 43% in the last 5 years alone.

Schools were issued with their allocations for the 2025/26 school year in June and the SNA review window from 15 September to 24 October relates to schools who believe they do not have sufficient SNAs to support their care needs at present.

A school can apply to the NCSE at any time during the school year, as in previous years, for a review where emerging or new care needs arise. An emerging care need for example would be changing care needs in their existing student enrolment, newly identified care need or a new enrolment(s) with care needs.

The NCSE has written to all schools since the publication of the guidelines to clarify that a school can request a review during the school year and not just in the review period set out in the guidelines.

The following are the reasons for the timeline of reviews contained in the guidance:

Supports the earlier announcement of allocations for the 2026/27 school year to align with the release of the annual staffing schedule.

Management bodies, staff representative bodies, schools and SNA’s have all requested the department to ensure that SNA allocations issue earlier each year and ideally should align with the general staffing allocation in February each year.

Supports the SNA workforce by giving them early clarity on their roles.

Facilitates the SNA Redeployment Scheme.

The role and responsibilities for SNAs has also not changed. SNAs remain responsible for meeting primary care needs for students with special educational needs.

New special classes continue to be supported with additional SNAs each time a new class opens – this has not changed. The NCSE guidelines set out the number of SNAs per each category of special class and there is no change to those baseline allocations.

Any school who has concerns about the level of their SNA allocation should contact their local special education needs organiser. This has always been the case and remains today.

The NCSE assesses the level of need within the school as a whole and this is critical to ensure that the care needs of the entire school are identified and that the school is resourced to meet this identified need. There continues to be separate allocations for mainstream and special classes in individual schools.

Then the NCSE completes the SNA review and if additional SNA support is identified as being required it will be provided. This has always been the case.

The NCSE carried out a record number of reviews in 2025 to ensure that children who most needed SNA support could access it. This will continue for 2025/26 school year. I want to assure you that the department and the NCSE, through all of our policy and guidance such as resource allocations, take a child centred focus and approach to ensure that all children in our schools with special education care needs are provided with a supportive environment and the resources needed to help them develop and be prepared for life after school.

The NCSE has confirmed they will be engaging with stakeholders to clarify any issues raised.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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284. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is concerned that the new SNA review process guidelines for 2025-26 published by the NCSE contain a requirement to evidence use of the RELATE framework which is not realistic for schools to demonstrate; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52634/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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It is important that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) review all aspects of support in schools to ensure that schools have the right supports in place. The NCSE incorporate a multi-tiered appraisal of student need, school deployment of existing SNA allocation and school practice during a SNA allocation review.

The NCSE Relate programme launched in February 2025 is a comprehensive resource to support school staff to understand and reframe behaviour. Training with hundreds of schools nationwide has been undertaken and the NCSE has provided a number of resources in which schools can engage which are available on their website, ncse.ie/relate. It is also open to schools to contact the NCSE in relation to any training need and arrange training.

The NCSE welcomes all documentation a school wishes to submit as part of its review process and will include all available information that a school chooses to submit. Ultimately, where additional SNA resources are necessary to support the needs of students in a school, this will be provided as it has been in previous years.

In addition. following the outcome of the review, the NCSE can make a local special educational needs organiser (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.