Parents in Cork ‘very fearful’ that SNAs may be taken away under findings of ongoing review

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

Parents are distressed and losing sleep over the “terrifying possibility” that the number of special needs assistants (SNAs) in the country may be reduced following a current review of the SNA allocation model, Cork councillors have said.

“I want to speak not with statistics or policy, but with the voices of many parents that I met in the past few months who were lying awake at night and with the quiet fears of children who sense that something that's important in their lives may be taken away,” Cllr Finbarr Harrington said at this week’s meeting of Cork County Council.

“Across our communities, families are living in a state of anxiety because of the current review. And let us be honest about what that word ‘review’ means for them – it means uncertainty, it means fear, it means the terrifying possibility that the support their child depends on could disappear.”

Cllr Harrington brought a motion calling on the council to write to the education minister asking for a guarantee that there will be no reduction in SNA numbers following the review.

He said SNAs are “not just supports in a system, they're lifelines. They're the calm presence during a meltdown. They're the quiet encouragement in a busy classroom. They're the bridge between isolation and inclusion. So to reduce or remove that support is not a small adjustment, it's a profound change in a child's life.”

The motion was seconded by the Mayor of County Cork, Cllr Mary Linehan Foley.

Cllr Ger Curley also spoke in support, underling the importance of SNAs in the education system. “My eldest son has special needs. He had an SNA all the way through his national school. He was lucky that he had the same SNA. The bond with them was so great that they still are great friends now and they still meet up a couple of times a year.

"It is so, so important that SNAs are kept and that the numbers are kept. There are more and more young children being diagnosed with special needs and these numbers have to be kept up,” he said.

Cllr Kay Dawson said that “the level of fear that is out there is tangible from the parents and from the SNAs themselves because they don't know what the changes will actually mean and what the implications for it are” while Cllr Daniel Sexton said he has been contacted by parents over recent months and “they're just very uncertain and very fearful going forward of what's going to happen.”

The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) has announced a national series of SNA reviews for 2025-26 and outlined three possible outcomes from a review: no change in SNA allocation, additional allocation or “a determination of a surplus allocation relative to existing primary care needs,” which could result in a reduction in the number of SNAs in that school. Cork County Council will now write to the education minister about the need to maintain current SNA numbers.