'No SNA cuts for next school year' after Government U-turn following sustained pressure

Tipperary Labour TD Alan Kelly has welcomed the Government’s decision to halt planned reductions in Special Needs Assistant allocations for the next school year.

READ MORE: Tipperary elderly care reassured as HSE confirms future services and new investment

In a statement on Facebook, Mr Kelly said: “No SNA Cuts For Next School Year!!” He said the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independent Government had “finally” recognised the value of SNAs and had “miraculously found €19m to help with this issue”.

He said the reversal followed sustained pressure from communities. “This U-turn is as a result of the public, school communities and parents of children with additional needs and learning difficulties standing together in Tipperary and across Ireland,” he said.

The Labour Party, he added, had consistently argued that the SNA role “must be child centred, must be protected and most of, all valued.”

Under the revised arrangement, no school will lose an SNA for the coming academic year, while schools already approved for additional SNAs will still receive them.

Mr Kelly said agreement is still required on an SNA redeployment scheme, a workforce plan and changes to a 2014 circular governing the role.

“The cannot be in the SNA position this time next year!” he said. He added that he looked forward to examining the detail of the decision in the coming days to ensure it is “future proofed”, while continuing his support for SNAs, the children they assist and the schools in which they work.

The Government confirmed that no reductions will take effect in the 2026 to 2027 school year and that schools which had undergone review and were due additional SNAs will receive them as planned. An extra €19m has been allocated to underpin the decision.

“Last night, we agreed at Government that schools who had an NCSE review were due to get an increase in their allocations for SNAs that will proceed this coming school year, and those schools that were in line to reduce resources, that would not happen,” stated Hildegarde Naughton the Minister for Education and Youth.

She said a redeployment scheme and a workforce development plan for SNAs would both be published, as well as the revised circular.

Ms Naughton said once those documents are published, the NCSE would start reviewing schools again for the 27/28 school year.

She said: “It’s really important that we are listening to parents, to SNAS, to schools who had huge concerns in relation to the cliff edge approach here.

This means there will be a fresh review process that will begin ahead of the 2027 to 2028 school year. Ministers have indicated that a redeployment scheme, a workforce development plan and a revised circular outlining the SNA role will be published before that next round of assessments takes place.

Ms Naughton added, “We need to bring everyone with us and I want to get it right.

“There’s no point in Government proceeding with something where our schools and our teachers and parents in particular are worried about the process and worried whether their children are going to have the supports they need, and that’s why it’s really important that we respond here, and we get the sequencing right and the communications right.”

Trade union Fórsa, which represents many SNAs, has said protests planned for this week may still go ahead, arguing that while the immediate reductions have been averted, outstanding concerns about the circular, the review process and long term certainty for SNAs remain unresolved.

READ NEXT: IN PICTURES: Were you among the 15,000 supporters to see Tipperary's clash with Limerick?