Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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359. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she or her Department are aware of any reductions to the SNA allocations for primary schools in Dublin northwest, following the most recent circular and guidelines from the NCSE on same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [65302/25]

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 potential and the Programme for Government makes a number of commitments to deliver on this objective.

There were four schools closing in June 2025 and the special need assistant SNA posts have been removed as a result. No other SNA post will be removed from any other schools for the 2025/26 school year.

While the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has identified at this time approximately 70 posts in schools where the care needs have reduced, it is not intended that these posts will be removed from a school’s overall allocation until the end of the 2025/26 academic year.

This will allow for the SNAs involved to continue to support the school community for an additional year at which point the recently announced SNA re-deployment scheme will become fully operational and available to the affected SNAs.

The NCSE will, as done this year and in previous years, review all school allocations for the 2026/27 school year and will allocate or reallocate SNA posts to schools based on the care needs of the students enrolled.