Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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193. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware of the fact that in the 2025/2026 SNA Review Guidelines the application window for school led reviews is limited to 15 September to 24 October and excludes mid-year needs, if the Government will look to extend school led reviews; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54407/25]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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194. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware of the fact that in the 2025/2026 SNA Review Guidelines, SNA allocations are now unified across mainstream and special classes, this will lead to less support for children in mainstream if SNAs are reallocated; if she will instruct her Department to investigate this matter and ensure children have the support they need. [54408/25]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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195. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware of the fact that several groups have expressed concerns regarding 2025/2026 SNA Review Guidelines, if she will instruct her Department to suspend the guidelines until proper consultation with schools, SNA’s and parents can occur. [54409/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 193, 194 and 195 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) issues guidance each year to schools regarding special needs assistant (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 NCSE has confirmed that no SNA post was removed from any school that was remaining open for the 2025/26 school year.

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. It remains that 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. 

I would also like to assure the deputy that new special classes continue to be supported with additional SNA posts each time a new class opens, this has not changed. The NCSE guidelines set out the number of SNA posts per each category of special class and there is no change to those baseline allocations.