This is the time of year that Deputies will be receiving correspondence from local schools about teacher and special needs assistant allocations. In my area of Wexford I am already working with St. Fintan's National School in Taghmon about its teacher allocations and Glenbrien National School about the provision of teacher hours. St. Fintan's faces losing a teacher and an administrative principal role despite having more than the required enrolment number this year to retain numbers. Taghmon is a very socially disadvantaged area of Wexford. This raises serious issues about the impact of this loss in the community. In Enniscorthy, Glenbrien National School is allotted 17.98 special education teacher hours for the entire school. This means that only a proportion of vulnerable children can get daily support, leaving others adrift. They are desperately appealing for a review to be carried out on their appeal by the National Council for Special Education. These schools, and parents throughout County Wexford, cannot operate without these extra special needs assistants and extra special education teacher hours. I ask the Taoiseach to raise these issues with his colleague, the Minister, Deputy Foley. If we are all in this together then schools must be functionally resourced to ensure the same.

Teacher allocations to schools throughout the country follow a broad pupil-teacher ratio model. This year, the Government reduced the pupil-teacher ratio in a significant move at budget time, which has been important, and provided a range of resources to schools, particularly during Covid-19. With regard to special needs assistant allocations, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, the Minister of State with responsibility for special education, Deputy Madigan, and the Government have supported that there will not be a reduction in the special needs assistant allocation for the forthcoming school year because of the situation pertaining around Covid.