Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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166. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the total number of SNAs at primary and post-primary school from 2011 to 2024; the number to be provided in 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45873/24]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Special needs assistants (SNAs) play a central role in the successful inclusion of students with additional and significant care needs into mainstream education, special classes and special schools ensuring that these students can access education to enable them to achieve their best outcomes and reach their full potential.

The NCSE has the responsibility for planning and coordinating school supports for children with special educational needs including the allocation of SNAs. Allocations are provided to schools on the basis of the school's overall profile of need. As a result, the number of students supported by SNAs varies from school to school.

When the NCSE allocates a SNA post, the board of management as the employer, is responsible for filling the vacancy. The decision on whether to employ a full time SNA to fill a full-time post or to employ an equivalent number of part time SNAs rests with the employer. Therefore data on the number of SNAs employed is held at a local level.

The NCSE publish their allocation of SNA posts annually on their website. For ease of reference these allocations are broken down by county and school type. This data is available at the following link: .

We have been steadily building on the number of SNAs in our education system. At the end of the 2023 school year there was just over 21,000 SNAs in schools, double the number there were in 2011. Budget 2024 provided for 1,216 new SNA posts and Budget 2025 for a further 1,600.

This increase provided in budget 2025 represents an increase of approximately 128% in the number of SNAs provided since 2011 at which point 10,320 SNAs were available.

The NCSE have provided details of the number of SNAs posts allocated to primary, post primary and special schools since 2011 and these are set out in the table below.