It appears the cuts to the number of special needs assistants in classrooms across the country which Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony described as “shameful” will go ahead, following the defeat of a private members’ motion in the Dáil on Wednesday night. Fine Gael had brought the Bill to the floor to try to halt the cuts but it was defeated by the Government. “This was a chance for our Government TD and Minister to strike a blow for Mayo, which they didn’t do,” Deputy O’Mahony, told the Mayo Advertiser. “This all came a day after the banks were bailed out for billions of euro, while it would have taken a minuscule amount of money to sort this problem out.”
Minister of State Dara Calleary hit out at accusations that he did not help his home constituency by dubbing the debate a “party political exercise” which would have achieved nothing. “What happened last night was purely a party political exercise, it’s not going to change a thing,” he told the Mayo Advertiser yesterday (Thursday ). “That’s why I stayed away from it. I can do a lot more in Government than on the other side to help this issue. I’ve already spoken to the Tánaiste on this since she took up her new role last week and will continue to work with her on it.
“There is an appeals procedure in place at the minute which is being worked through and this has my full backing, but I will continue to do what I can and work with the relevant Minister on the situation,” he added.
However Calleary’s fellow Fianna Fáil TD Beverly Flynn believes that the appeals procedure itself is needs to be changed. “The appeals procedure is in place for about one hundred schools in the country have appealed the decision. But that itself is not a independent review and I have said that it needs to be changed and have brought it up with the Minister.” She said the reduction in numbers should not have come in during the middle of the term, and for the schools that have appealed it won’t happen before the end of the year. “I have said it before, that the schools all went through a review last summer and that this should have done for the year,” she added.
“I have criticised the decision to do it in the middle of the term. But for the schools that have gone into the appeals process, it will be the end of the school year by the time the decisions come into action. It’s at this stage the applications for SNAs for following school term will be applied for. This would have been the right time to decide this issue.”
The Opposition has no faith in the appeals process as Dep O’Mahony explained: “This appeals process is not independent and it’s hard to have a lot of faith in it, but I will not be letting this go, it’s a shameful act and something that I will keep working on.”
Sinn Féin councillor Gerry Murray, who joined a large protest in and outside the Dáil, also didn’t expect a reversal of the decision to cut posts. “It’s not an independent appeal and it’s hard to have faith in it,” he said. “We’ve seen 353 jobs cut nationally under this review, and we’ll probably see more coming down the line.”
Cllr Murray travelled to Dublin with a number of parents who were protesting and told the Mayo Advertiser of their anger. “These people are very angry and upset with the decisions being made,” he said. “One of the people who travelled up had to get two different carers to look after their child for the day, so they could come up here and make their feelings known. And when the parents stood up in the public gallery to make a silent protest during the debate, they were told by the ushers they had to sit down or they were going to be thrown out. It’s just not good enough.”
Dep O’Mahony also spoke to a number of parents who had made the trip to Dublin and told a similar tale. “One parent I spoke to, who has a blind child, told me that they had to get a grandparent to take the day off work to look after their child so they could come up here and protest on their behalf.”
Fiona Byrnes, principal of St Anthony’s special school in Castlebar which stands to lose three special needs assistants as part of these cuts, said she was “disappointed” with the outcome on Wednesday night, and she would have to look into it before deciding the next step.
