Under the programme for Government, I want to raise supports for special needs education. The Minister for Education and Skills came to Clonmel two weeks ago and announced about 600 new special needs assistants, SNAs. On the same day, the teaching and SNA staff in St. Mary's CBS in Irishtown, Clonmel, were told that they were being cut drastically. That school caters for boys from first to sixth class and has two autism spectrum disorder, ASD, units. Its staff champion the cause of ASD units. Two SNAs are being cut, one with 12 years' experience and one with six years' experience. The school is expected to carry on with children in mainstream classes and in the units without those SNAs. The whole system is totally unfair. The SNAs have to wait every year to see if they will get their notice. They have no job security. The families have no security whose children are attending there and who are grateful for the work the SNAs do. I have raised the matter already and hope the Minister will look into it. It is a sweeping cut. It is the only school in Clonmel with two ASD units. Big announcements are no good; they want real assurance that they will be maintained.

This year is the first time that we have made the allocation of SNAs known to the schools in mid-May. This has been welcomed by schools and by Fórsa, the union representing SNAs, as significant progress in giving greater certainty. We have provided 840 additional SNAs for this coming September, which will bring the figure for additional SNAs in the last three years close to 3,000. We are greatly expanding this.

Of course, in respect of individual schools, the allocation will reflect the children attending the school at the time. That is decided independently by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. The school will have the opportunity to appeal if it is not satisfied with the allocation. Those appeals will be facilitated by the NCSE.