Climbdown on SNA posts is a sticking plaster at best according to Tipperary TD

Deputy Seamus Healy stated in Dáil Éireann that the Government's climbdown on SNAs was a sticking plaster at best.

The  Tipperary South TD told Taoiseach Micheal Martin that special needs assistants needed a guarantee that the criteria would be changed and widened.

“Trained special needs assistants and trained special needs teachers are angels. The child begins to respond, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. Last week, the Government turned off that light. It created fear, trepidation, and confusion. The so-called pause last week was a smokescreen to buy time. The climbdown is a sticking plaster at best,” said Deputy Healy.

Deputy Healy said that parents of children with special needs had to fight for everything; it amounted to a rollercoaster of anxiety and stress.

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“ Early warning signs usually show around six months, but the support of relatives and friends suggests it is a little bit slow, and it will come right. However, at 12 months, things like a vacant stare or little or no baby babble spark real concerns. The anxiety, stress, and sleepless nights for parents start in a real way.

By 18 months, missed milestones confirm a problematic future and the fight for parents begins in earnest. The first hurdle is the assessment of need. Thousands of people and children, over 20,000 of them, are on waiting lists: over two and a half years of waiting at a time when a diagnosis and treatment is absolutely vital. Parents who can manage it deprive themselves to scrape together the fee for a private assessment.

Armed with that diagnosis, the fight begins again for services. The next hurdle is a massive waiting list for those therapy services, such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and so on. By now, parents are running on empty, stressed out, anxious and not sleeping. Despite the need for two incomes to keep a roof over their head, one parent frequently has to give up work. This is more stress - financial stress.

The next hurdle is a struggle to get their child an appropriate school place. They may have to go to the High Court to get that. The eventual place may be anything up to 25 miles from home. However, then there is the huge relief of getting an appropriate school place. Trained special needs assistants and trained special needs teachers are angels. The child begins to respond and there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

Deputy Healy said parents of children with special needs and special needs assistants need to know that the criteria for getting a special needs assistant will include not just primary care needs but, for instance, a child with autism who is overwhelmed or an anxious child who is unable to learn without adult support and without help with communications and for social understanding or emotional distress or sensory difficulties. The parents and the special needs assistants need a guarantee that criteria will be changed and widened.

The Taoiseach, Micheal Martin said well over 25,000 SNAs would l be allocated for the next school year.

“That is a significant expansion on the 2025 figure and on where we have been over the last number of years. That is a story of expansion. The school-based therapy service is a further addition to the special schools. For the first time ever, about 90 therapists will be recruited in a comprehensive way for special schools.

Additional special education teachers are being appointed. Thousands have been appointed. There has been a dramatic increase in their numbers and in the number of special classes. Thousands of additional classes have been provided over the last number of years.

An objective analysis or assessment shows this expansion and this increase in investment. That will continue. Parallel to that, we want to develop supportive services for teachers in mainstream classes, in special classes and in the system more generally,” he said.

Deputy Seamus Healy said the Taoiseach has had four opportunities to answer the core question in relation to this issue this afternoon but he had refused to do so.

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“The core question in this whole debate is the criteria that are to be met if a child with special needs is to get the assistance of a special needs assistant. The current criteria are too narrow. They are outdated and primarily based on primary care needs. They do not include children who have social misunderstanding, children with sensory difficulties or children who are on the autistic spectrum or some of the other spectrums. Everybody involved in education knows that is the key question. What we here, the public, parents and special needs assistants want to know is whether those criteria will be used and extended into the future,” stated Deputy Healy.