The first-ever plan to professionalise the role of special needs assistants (SNAs) will be considered by the Government on Wednesday, months after Ministers were forced to U-turn on plans to reduce the number of educational assistants in 200 schools across the country.
Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton is bringing the Special Needs Assistant Workforce Development Plan to Cabinet on Wednesday, the first such plan to come from an SNA unit set up in the Department of Education in 2022.
In February, the Government was forced to abandon plans to remove SNA resources from some schools following a sharp public backlash. Naughton and Minister of State with responsibility for Special Education Michael Moynihan conceded that the Government should have brought forward details of a workforce plan and redeployment scheme for SNAs before such a review of resources would be considered. The Government has confirmed that there will be no review of SNA resources before the 2026/2027 academic year. Any reviews after that will be based on the plans being brought to Cabinet on Wednesday.
Naughton will brief colleagues on the workforce plan, a redeployment scheme and a new circular which will outline the role of an SNA. The workforce plan, which took two years to develop, is based on a survey of 13,000 of the estimated 25,000 SNAs currently working in Ireland. It is designed to create more job security for SNAs. If or when demand for their work changes in their current school, SNAs will be offered a similar role in another school.
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Meanwhile, a plan that could see members of the public sent early-warning text messages in advance of extreme weather events could be in place from as early as next year. Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan will on Wednesday seek approval from the Cabinet for his department to start the procurement process for a phone alert public warning system. The system would be able to send emergency warnings from the Government directly to the phones of members of the public.
The system, once set up, will be run from the Office of Emergency Planning – a civil and military agency that helps Government departments to plan for and respond to emergencies. The Irish Times had previously reported that no Government department or agency had agreed to take on responsibility for the warning system. It is understood that both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste were unhappy that several departments and agencies believed operational control of the planned new alert system should be done by others.
Agencies that had been considered for running the system included local authorities, Met Éireann, the Office of Public Works and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Government is planning to use the system for extreme weather events such as storms, and it is anticipated that it could be up and running as early as next year.
O’Donovan will also ask his colleagues to support the Football Association of Ireland (FAI)’s bid to host the 2029 Uefa Women’s Champions League final in Dublin. The application deadline for countries hoping to host the event is June 10th. Ireland, Wales, France and Switzerland have all expressed an interest. O’Donovan will tell colleagues that the FAI believes Ireland stands a “good chance” of being successful.
Meanwhile, Minister for Children and Equality Norma Foley will bring a memo to the meeting seeking approval to make it mandatory for employers to use a new gender pay reporting “portal”. Under a 2021 law, every organisation in Ireland with more than 50 employees is legally required to publish details of its gender pay gap. The majority of employers publish this information on their own websites.
