Special Needs Assistants vote for industrial action

Special Needs Assistants (SNAs)represented by Impact have voted in favour of industrial action over what they describe as the proliferation of part-time and "fragmented" posts.

The trade union, which represents 6,000 SNAs, who assist students with non-teaching duties, said the problem of reduced hours was becoming worse each year to the point that many jobs were “no longer viable”.

In some cases, individual SNAs had been reduced to as little as 10 hours of work spread over a full working week.

The fragmented nature of allocations meant individual SNAs could also be dealing with as many as seven different children with special needs, thereby impacting on their quality of care, Impact assistant general secretary Dessie Robinson said.

The ballot for industrial action was approved Wednesday by a vote of 95 per cent in favour. The union’s education divisional executive will meet on April 8th at its annual conference in Galway to discuss what actions might be taken.

Mr Robinson said the union expected some response from the department of education to meet its members’ demand to avoid any possible disruption to schools.

"The department continues to avoid getting into a discussion about the problem, and has instead pointed the finger of blame at the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) which oversees the annual allocation of the SNA service," he said.

The ballot motion seeks: “A firm commitment from the Department of Education and Skills that no SNA will have their working hours or income reduced once there is work available in the school, as determined by the NCSE allocation, prior to any new member of staff being recruited for that school.”

Mr Robinson said that individual SNAs had suffered in recent years as individual posts were broken down into, in some cases, just a few hours a week. “That’s not a good development for children who rely on the service, and it has made it impossible for many SNAs to make any kind of living from their work.”

He said the union understood there were management challenges at both school and departmental level but “every single year it seems to get worse and worse”.