The number of SNAs at around 580 schools was reviewed by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), and a third of schools were told that the number of SNAs at their school would be reduced from September.
Mr Harris said that while there was a “strong logic” to review SNA allocations, “the buck stops with us” in how the review was handled.
“There’s been a lot of hurt caused over the course of the last week, a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. We got this wrong,” he told Newstalk’s The Claire Byrne Show.
“The reality of the situation is when something goes wrong, you’ve got to put your hands up and you’ve got to fix it.
“What I heard from parents across the country, what I heard from SNAS and what I heard from teachers was that the sequencing here matters.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he expected the Government would have been informed of the potential impact of a review into SNA allocations on schools but added he still has confidence in the National Council of Special Education to do its job.
Mr Martin said that it was false to say that the Cabinet signed off on the findings of the review and defended the move to pause the review and reallocation of SNAs for the coming school year after it caused concern and outrage among parents, teachers and SNAs.
“The review was initiated way back, but what I would have thought ordinarily would happen is that a presentation would be made, initially to the ministers, and then to Government, to say ‘look, we’ve concluded the review. Here’s the impact, here’s the potential implications’,” Mr Martin said on Tuesday night.
“That didn’t happen on this occasion. So it is just false to say we signed off at the Cabinet. It didn’t come before Cabinet in terms of the numbers.”
Despite this, Mr Martin confirmed he has confidence in the NCSE going forward.
“The NCSE would have said to me that there wouldn’t have been a comprehensive review of schools over the last five or six years. They were embarking on that and that’s probably part of the challenge here,” he said.
“What had been happening was schools who were looking for additional SNAs would make submissions, and the National Council concentrated on those schools and didn’t do a broader look. And so that that’s the backdrop.”
Mr Martin added that “there will have to be regular annual reviews” of SNA allocations and that he did not believe anyone expected “that forever and ever you retain the same complement of SNAs”.
Two-thirds of schools were deemed to need more SNAs or to keep their current allocation as it was.
Mr Martin accused Ms McDonald of exaggeration and said she personified ‘cynicism’
Earlier this week the Government agreed not to reduce the number of SNAs at any schools from September, but in schools where the NCSE said more were needed they will be allocated. The decision will cost an extra €19m.
Once a revised circular, a redeployment scheme and a workforce development plan for SNAs are published, the NCSE will again review SNA allocations at schools for the 27/28 academic year.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik said it was “extraordinary” to state that the Government did not sign off on the review after ministers publicly defended the plan last week.
“The Government never signed off on this at a governmental level,” Mr Martin said to Ms Bacik. “Government didn’t sign off on this, in terms of the 550 and the scale and the impact of it.
“When Government saw the impact of this, Government considered it, and Government has decided not to go ahead with what was being proposed.”
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the Government had announced “an extension of that pause” that would “buy yourself time and to alleviate pressure on Government”.
She said the cut to SNAs “remains on the table”, despite concern and “heartbreak” from parents, and called on the Government to rule out any cuts to SNA services, calling it a “cynical bean-counting exercise”.
“This is a tactical retreat and not a change of heart,” she said in the Dáil on Tuesday.
That’s not taking special needs assistants from vulnerable children
Mr Martin accused Ms McDonald of exaggeration and said she personified “cynicism”.
“In 2020 there were 16,000 special needs assistants, starting next September, there will be well over 25,000 special needs assistants,” he said.
“That’s not cut backs, that’s not pulling back, that’s not taking special needs assistants from vulnerable children, that’s allocating more resources.”
He said there had been a “significant” increase in the number of children and young people identifying with a disability in the last census compared to the previous census.
“Taoiseach, what you have given us is a demonstration of a complete unwillingness to accept realities on the ground,” Ms McDonald said.
Mr Martin said he accepted that parents of children with special needs “have to fight a very hard battle” for services in education and healthcare and said he believes in a “multi-disciplinary approach” to help children with special needs which they would “deliver on during the lifetime of this Government”.
He said the percentage of the overall education budget, now at €13bn, “is very, very high” because the Government had “prioritised” special education.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said that complex needs must be reintroduced as a criteria when considering allocations and its removal was “a step in the complete wrong direction”.
#Taoiseach #Micheál #Martin #insists #Cabinet #signed #plans #slash #SNA #numbers
