Richard Boyd Barrett: Urges Government to Abandon S&A Cuts

Thanks. Minister, the very angry and shocked protests of my former primary school helped highlight the severity of the impact of the S&A cuts that the government were planning. You may have seen the protests for Johnstown National School on Tuesday evening on RTE. Now, of course, they were just one of many schools that saw these attacks, but fair play to the teachers, the S&As, the parents got out and protested. But in that school alone, the number of S&As was going from nine to less than four. And I met with all of the teachers, the parents, the S&As, the principal of my former school this week, and they were just absolutely gutted, shocked, couldn't believe that it even could be considered. Now, what they want to know is pauses are all very well, but they are now sitting in limbo waiting to know whether the government are going to abandon these cuts, which would be very severe, damaging, detrimental to the welfare of children with special needs, other children in the class, the S&As themselves, and the teachers. They all want to know that you're going to abandon these S&A cuts. Thank you, sir. There will be a script handed around, but I'll deal with the issue without the script. I thank you for the engagement, and all members for the engagement, and the seriousness of the issue. And I do take on board all of the issues that you've raised. If I could talk on the policy force, right? So if you take on the 2014 document, the circular 2014, we have over 12,000 more S&As have been recruited, are working in the system since that document. So we have expanded. There's a bit going around, if we're going back to the 2014 document, and that's where the cuts are coming from. The S&A workforce has expanded considerably over that period. But I do take the concerns that parents have, I take the concerns that schools have, and the kids as well. And I understand full well the importance of the S&A. And in every school community that I go into, I have said, we have built special education on the backs of the special needs assistants, and the enormous work that they do on it. And I suppose, you know, we have increased the special needs assistant population to 25,000 to 45% over the last short number of years. We have a hugely valued workforce within the S&A. And I suppose just as the point is this week is constantly, what is the pause? The pause is, we have stopped, in relation to the decisions that were taken or communicated to schools last week, we have stopped. And I should be fair to everybody, we have stopped all of it. Like we would normally, in May or June, the allocation of S&As would go out to schools. We brought it back this year, because I firmly believe that we have to have earlier communication. We brought back the notification for families that needed additional education needs, we brought back that to October. I firmly believe that we have to bring it back earlier in the school cycle. So we want to communicate earlier, we're communicating it, but we are pausing it, because we are looking at the totality of the issue of special education assistance. And we don't, we don't, to talk to your point, we don't want schools in limbo, because we want to make sure that we have certainty as soon as possible. So we've had a number of engagements over the last 24, 48 hours, intensive engagements in relation to this issue, and they will go on over the next number of days as well. And we will be bringing clarity as early as possible to the steps forward. And I take on board, you know, you mentioned Johnstone and the cliff edge of the five schools, five special needs assistance that have been taken out of it. Like, we can't have that. We do have to have a continuous enrolment. And we do have to ensure that the value that we have in the special education, the special needs assistance, that they are following the children, that the children with the most need, the children that need the help, have the SNAs. Because if they have the SNAs, it will allow them to flourish, it will allow them to grow it in their school community, and it will allow them to have better outcomes in life as well. And many people would have, would not be able to attend school unless they have the SNAs. And we need everybody on board. We need the department, we need the school communities, we need the parents, we need the unions, and we need to have a, you know, a system that everybody has faith in. But we do have to, I think that, you know, one of the challenges that we are now doing is that we're doing reviews, we should have been doing reviews every second year or every year, so that they would understand the, you know, the roles within the National Council for Special Education, the interaction with the school communities, and the interaction with the families, so that we would have better information. But we do have to make sure that what we are, like, what we are doing, we have to, we have to have confidence in this. And families who have contacted me, school principals who have contacted me, and I've spoken to many, many of them over the last week in particular, like, I can assure them that we will do the right thing by them, and particularly by the children who need the support in schools. Deputy Boyd Barrett? Yeah, so it's really not clear, and it looks to me as if the SNAs, and therefore the children for whom they provide the support, and consequently all the other children in the class, and consequently all the teachers, are still in the crosshairs. And all we've got is a pause, because people express such outrage, such anger, and such shock. I should mention another school, as well as Johnstown in my area, Old Saints School, a small little school in Blackrock, has lost its only SNA. No SNA at all now. This is absolutely unacceptable. The care needs of the children haven't changed. So they need the same support they had before, and we need that commitment from the government. The pieces for which we are delivering the special needs assistance is under the 2014 piece, the circuit 2014, which has allowed us to grow over 50% or nearly 60% of the workforce and the special needs assistance. It is a whole-of-government approach. Like, everybody, like this is, you know, this is a very, very serious issue in terms of families, in terms of school communities, and it is a whole-of-government approach. We are all engaged with that. And Hildegard Nocton and I have had multiple conversations and meetings over the last number of days and weeks, particularly over the last number of days. But right over the weekend and into the, we are engaging extremely carefully as how we proceed. And we had a number of meetings this morning as well. The, in, you asked me to clarify a few points in relation to your meeting tonight, right? So one point is that if a school has gone through, gone through an S&A assessment or gone through with the SINOs, and it was clearly demonstrated in that school that there was additional care needed, like, that has to be stood over. Because if the school demonstrates that there is additional care needed, we are about ensuring that the care that is needed is, that we are giving the, the special needs assistance are walking towards that. Just to make that point in relation to it. And, like, it was ever, like, there was never any discussion that it was immediately these, if there was a school losing their S&As. They were always losing them from the 1st of September of 2026, not now or not sometime at Easter or ever. It was always within the school year 2026. So, like, I mean, that was very clear at all times that it was within the school year. And I suppose we are, like, we are pausing it because the process, there has been so much concern in relation to the process. And we have to be extremely confident of the process that we put in place, that all of the school communities, all of the education partners have confidence in that, and that we can go forward with confidence in it. There was mention about the diagnosis and the removal of the diagnosis. We cannot remove that unless we have a robust process in place that all education partners are confident with, and that is something that we are working on currently. That will take some time to make sure that we have a robust system in place and that there is no, like, this is a very significant policy change and we have to make sure that we get it right. But I can assure the House and all members that we are a very significant policy change and we have to make sure that we get it right. But I can assure the House and all members that we are working extremely carefully to make sure both the National Council for Special Education and to ourselves as the elected members and the department officials, and like, we have seen, you know, a number of attacks and, you know, of various different types over the last couple of days. I can assure you, lads, we will, when we have this done, we will have it right. I can assure you that we take everything seriously on this. We understand the Special Needs Assistant, we understand the child and we understand the families and we understand the schools. Thanks, Minister. We move on now to the topic of the room. ... ... ...