Before we begin, I again express the Labour Party's solidarity with Ukraine as we mark the fourth anniversary today of Russia's full-scale invasion. As Ukraine enters its fifth year under Putin's brutal bombardment, our thoughts today must be with all those bereaved, injured or displaced by this horrific war in Europe.

Last night was the latest climbdown in the special education saga. SNAs, principals, teachers and parents who spent a week in fear now know that their children will at least not lose SNA supports this year. That relief is thanks to them and their insistence that the Government must listen to their campaigning and advocacy. Unfortunately, our school communities are having to get good at campaigning. In a year, they have had to mobilise for their SNAs, caretakers and school secretaries and the Labour Party has supported school communities every step of the way.

These SNA cuts were first raised in this Chamber by my Labour Party colleagues, Deputies Eoghan Kenny and Mark Wall. While we welcome the news late last night that there will be no immediate SNA cuts this September, the Government's latest U-turn raises further questions about how such drastic reductions were signed off on in the first place. It is was the Taoiseach's Government that directed the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, to carry out this review. It approved the approach and so, as we know, schools received letters without warning telling them they were losing a classroom lifeline. Some were threatened with a cut to half their SNA staffing. All were threatened with cuts without warning or consultation and only after a national uproar did the Government reverse course.

This is not a good look for Fianna Fáil. The Taoiseach's party used to have a good story to tell on education, with Donogh O'Malley's achievements, for example, which I have always acknowledged. Fianna Fáil used to have a vision on education but now when we think of Fianna Fáil, or indeed Fine Gael, we think of prefabs, paused renovations, poor pay for school secretaries and caretakers and now this.

While this €19 million buffer has bought the Government 12 months, schools have no long-term certainty because the Government has not actually fixed anything. It has merely kicked the can down the road. It has kicked the problem into next year, hoping, no doubt, that the anger will fade. I can tell the Taoiseach now, and we know it in the Opposition, that it will not fade. We already have a special education system lurching from crisis to crisis. We already have parents who are exhausted, worn out, having to fight so hard for the supports their children need.

They and the schools need certainty and clarity, but we have been coming up against brick walls in trying to get clarity from the Taoiseach. We have specific questions. Where is this €19 million coming from? Is it being pulled from the already stretched special education teacher allocation budget? What happens to the schools that are due an increase in SNA posts next year? Where are the additional SNAs coming from? How will this redeployment scheme work? Will the Taoiseach guarantee that these are new posts, not taken from other classrooms? A pause is not a plan. This is just an extended pause. Schools and children need clarity. Will the Taoiseach provide it?

First of all, as we have outlined already - I said it last week in response to Deputy Bacik - any additional SNAs that were identified by the council as being required by a particular school will get this in the context of that review, so they will get that. The funding is additional to the education budget and will not be taken from any other part of the education budget.

It is not an initiative without a plan. The Government never signed off on this at a governmental level, and I would just make that point to the Deputy. The Government did not sign off on this in terms of the 550, and the scale and the impact of it. When the Government saw the impact of this, it considered it and decided not to go ahead with what was being proposed, and that there will be no reductions in the next school year, and that prior to anything happening, there is a redeployment plan, which, by the way, was sought by the unions - in my view, correctly so. Teachers have had that since the late 1980s. I think it was Kieran Mulvey who negotiated that, with others, on behalf of the teacher unions back then. If schools reduced their numbers, teachers could be redeployed to other schools. If children with special needs are reduced by a natural process, and move on to second level or whatever, the SNAs, rather than being made redundant, will be redeployed to another school as close as possible to the school where they operate. That is a good, positive thing. It is very positive and progressive.

In terms of workforce planning, there is an issue, or perhaps not an issue, but we need to take care to protect SNAs and that they are not asked to do everything in a school. Normally, the process is that the school says it has such a cohort of children in the school who require care and support, and it will require so many SNAs. That gets reviewed or assessed by the National Council for Special Education, and it makes a deliberation on that. There is a process for doing that. It has a panel, which can hear appeals from schools. That is normal, and it has been happening.

What has happened in the last two to three years is that only schools that submitted for an increase were considered by the National Council for Special Education. There was not an overall review. An overall review was initiated, but before the outcome of that was comprehensively brought to a conclusion, action was taken in terms of what happened with correspondence going out to schools and so forth. Out of that, many schools gained, and some would have stayed the same and will stay the same. There will be no reductions next year. We will have the workforce planning, which has to happen, and is a good thing. There is also a new circular, which will have some changes compared to the 2014 circular, and the redeployment scheme. It is only then that we should look at a review process. Again, that is with a view to having consideration of the children who need the support. They have to be uppermost in our consideration.

It is extraordinary to hear the Taoiseach say that the Government never signed off on this. It was Government policy. Government Ministers were out defending it all last week. The Labour education spokesperson, Deputy Eoghan Kenny, was on "Prime Time" last week against the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, on this very point. It is extraordinary to hear the Taoiseach now seeking to deflect blame and responsibility. It was Government policy. It got the NCSE to implement it.

There is a question here for special educational needs organisers, SENOs, as well. Where does this leave them?

There is a fundamental lack of coherence in Government decision-making that is so visible here. No matter how much the Taoiseach says this money is extra and schools will be reassured, there is a fundamental lack of coherence and vision. Meanwhile, there are nearly 200 schools that were facing a cut in SNA allocation last week and are now waiting to see if they will, in fact, be able to keep their SNAs and what that will mean for education planning overall. As the union Fórsa has said, this is a sticking plaster. This €19 million is a sticking plaster to disguise and mask the lack of coherence and the attempt to deflect blame to others.

Thank you, Deputy, Taoiseach to respond.

The Taoiseach needs to take responsibility for this fiasco, and take it now.

I will take responsibility for the fact that well over 8,000 additional special needs assistants have been allocated to our schools since 2020. Let us have a sense of perspective here. Less of the rhetoric and the doomsday language.

Oh no, we have not done that.

Stop, please.

I did not interrupt the Deputy. I would appreciate if I had the same opportunity. Well over 8,000 additional special needs assistants - that is not cutbacks, that is expansion, at an exponential rate. There is huge, growing need. We need to analyse that and reflect on it. That is why we are bringing a therapy-based service into our schools. That is an important intervention and I think one of the more significant decisions that this Government has taken, that there will be a therapy-based service in all our special schools and then moving into the mainstream schools. Because SNAs will not be able to do everything, and let us not pretend they will be able to do everything, as has been suggested by the Opposition.

We never said that.

Yes, you have.

Please.

I am very clear about this and very focused and I have a very clear idea because I have been working on this all my political life, so I know a fair bit about it. What I am simply saying is that we need additional supports, but we need to have multidisciplinary supports, in my view, in our schools, to help children in a more comprehensive and holistic way.

Can we get a medal for the Taoiseach?