(Ireland) Co Louth: School can't provide aides for all the children who need them

May 5, 2025, Roller Coaster: Mum ‘terrified’ for son with autism affected by school’s shortage of additional needs supports

Something as simple as a ten-minute movement break can make all the difference to Caleb Roche’s day in school.

Autistic, with sensory processing disorder and dyspraxia, this hazel-eyed seven-year-old from Drogheda, Co Louth, can get easily overwhelmed.

But a short walk or some time on the trampoline helps ‘regulate’ his mood and makes it possible for him to concentrate a little better in class.

But Caleb, who is in first class, doesn’t always get these vital breaks, or if he does, because of a chronic shortage of additional needs assistants (ANAs) at his primary school, he must share them with three or four other kids.

It’s far from ideal and his mum, Sarah Brady, believes it’s had a detrimental effect on his education. ‘I really can’t see much difference from junior infants until now, he finds it really difficult, especially writing,’ Sarah explains. ‘He’s in a mainstream class all day with no support.

Don’t get me wrong, the school is fantastic, they do their absolute best, and I’d love to list out all the supports he gets, but I can’t.

 ‘There is an ANA in the class, but she’s there for four or five different kids, she’s split between so many, I don’t know how she does it.

‘Caleb gets a little bit of help with his reading, but apart from that, not much else.’ Unable to afford any kind of private supports, Sarah trained as an ANA herself in an effort to help Caleb at home as much as she can. ‘I’ll be honest here, I’m already terrified for him,’ she says.

‘There’s no real action being taken for him at primary school level, so what’s it going to be like for him going into secondary school? ‘We know early intervention makes a world of difference, but he’s been so badly let down.’ Caleb is one of around 50 children at Marymount National School in Drogheda who have ‘support plans’ in place for their additional needs.

At present, Marymount has two-and-a-half ANAs provided by the Department of Education, meaning two are full-time and one does a half week.

The school, which has around 320 pupils and 16 mainstream classes, is also paying privately for an extra ANA, which comes out of a budget supposed to go on ‘resources and activities’. There’s only enough left in the pot to pay their salary until the end of this school year.

Last September, principal Jane Kirwan and her team started the laborious application process to the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to try and get more ANAs to help with the ever increasing workload.

They calculated that they need ten full-time ANAs, but aware of the countrywide shortages and budget constraints, they figured they’d ‘make do’ with a total of seven.

After the official review in February by the special educational needs officer (SENO), Jane had an inkling they stood little chance of getting seven, but so desperate is their situation, she had resigned herself to taking whatever they could get. However, nothing prepared her for the final report from the SENO.

‘The actual review didn’t happen until mid-February, which I thought was a horrendous delay, given that we applied at the very beginning of the school year,’ she says. ‘Then it took another six weeks after that review before we heard back from the SENO.’

They’d been approved for two extra ANAs. ‘But then the SENO told us she’d been informed that the national cap [for the allocation of new ANAs] had been reached the week before and she wasn’t allowed to allocate us any new ANAs unless we took one from another school,’ says Jane. . . .

Local Labour TD Ged Nash raised the situation at Marymount in the Dáil on Wednesday during his party’s motion on special education. He told how he recently submitted a parliamentary question to Education Minister Helen McEntee on the matter.

‘Despite a clear recommendation from their local SENO to increase their allocation, the new posts were denied,’ he told the Dáil. ‘It’s because of some invisible and arbitrary national cap, an effective recruitment ban that isn’t a recruitment ban.

This is Orwellian stuff, quite frankly.’ He claimed the response he got from the minister failed to address the situation at Marymount or ‘admit there is a national cap on the recruitment of SNAs at all’.

A few weeks ago, Sinn Féin’s Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh raised the same issue in the Dáil with Special Education Minister Michael Moynihan.

The Kildare TD told how she’d been contacted by a school who also received a recommendation for additional ANA support, but was then informed they wouldn’t be getting it because the ‘cap’ had already been reached.

She asked Minister Moynihan if there had been a ‘change in approach or policy?’ ‘There is absolutely no policy change in relation to SNAs,’ he replied. ‘We have more SNAs working in the education system and more budgeted for the 2025-26 school year.’

But according to Nash, his office has been inundated with calls and emails from parents and teachers in Louth about not getting their recommended increase of ANAs.

‘This is despite a thorough review and a clear recommendation, the intimation being that a national limit has been reached,’ he said.

In recent weeks, Minister McEntee confirmed there will be 399 new special education classes for the next school year, which will include 287 at primary level and 112 in post-primary schools.

However, the issue at Marymount NS, which other schools around the country have also reported, involves ANAs assigned to help children in mainstream classes.

‘Look, 100 per cent I believe we need more special needs classes around the country,’ says Jane Kirwan. ‘Had we said to our SENO that we’d open a special class, she would have approved us a teacher, two ANAs, a budget of €30,000 and access to another €70,000 if modifications needed to happen in the school. . . . .

‘We’ve a large number dealing with anxiety, and a good few deaf children, who have no behavioural concerns, but you need an ANA to help them put in and take out their hearing aids before and after break times. Or the children with diabetes, who need their readings checked. . . .

A Department of Education spokesperson told the IDM: ‘There is no freeze on SNA provision. Each year schools are advised of their SNA supports, which takes account of the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) reviews to ensure that SNAs are allocated to the children with the greatest level of need.

Such reviews can see an increased or reduced level of support or no change in allocation. ‘As recently announced, work has commenced on an SNA redeployment scheme.

The initial introduction of the SNA redeployment scheme for the 2025/2026 school year will provide an opportunity to deploy SNAs as the need arises but also critically an opportunity to evaluate and refine provisions in the scheme so that a fully operational scheme will be in place for the 2026/27 school year.’

Jane is keen to point out how it’s not just kids with additional needs impacted by the shortage of ANAs in mainstream classes. . . .

The kids with the absolute highest level of need are taking up all the resources and all the time.’ She is pessimistic about any improvement happening by next September. ‘I think we’ll just be the same,’ she says.

‘Since the review in February, three more children with autism have enrolled in the school. So however bad it was, it’s gotten even needier.’

Nash says it’s difficult to get information from the Department of Education about how long this apparent freeze on appointing new ANAs will last.

‘They won’t admit the cap exists at all,’ he says. ‘If they won’t admit it’s in place, how are we meant to ascertain how long it’s in place for?’ Sarah Brady desperately wants her son Caleb to stay in mainstream education.

‘There’s so much talk about inclusion in mainstream classes but there’s no support in place to allow it to happen,’ she says. ‘All I’m hearing is that we’re opening more special classes in schools, which is great, but what about our special educational needs children in mainstream classes?

‘It’s heartbreaking because I feel my son, like many other SEN children, simply doesn’t matter.

It comes across that the main objective is opening special classes and then everything will be fine. But how is this of any benefit to the children in mainstream classes? They matter too, just as much.’