A teacher suffered five broken teeth as they attempted to keep a child safe in a classroom that was refused an additional special-needs assistant (SNA), an Oireachtas committee has been told.
Fine Gael senator Linda Nelson Murray said she had been contacted by a school in Meath West, where a teacher sustained “serious” dental injuries during “an interaction with a pupil while attempting to keep the child safe”.
“Five lower teeth were broken, resulting in significant pain and extensive dental treatment,” she told the Committee on Education and Youth on Thursday.
“Both SNAs have sustained multiple injuries in the course of their duties. They’re exhausted, distressed and emotionally overwhelmed and have indicated that they may be forced to leave their positions due to the physical and emotional toll of the work.”
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Nelson Murray added that particular class had been refused an additional SNA, which they were appealing. The senator asked the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) how it could be decided not to give the class an extra SNA given “those type of injuries”.
Members of the council and civil servants from the Department of Education and Youth were before the committee this morning to discuss the provision of special education and the SNA allocation review.
[ ‘Take school dinners’ before cutting SNAs, parents and teachers tell GovernmentOpens in new window ]
Helen Walsh, from the NCSE, said within the context of children with additional needs they were seeing more schools reporting “behaviours of concern”.
“Staff are in vulnerable positions and we fully respect that,” she said. “We don’t want to see that happening and we also equally see and respect children who are in vulnerable positions in schools similarly.”
Walsh said of the 4,500 schools that had come to the NCSE for support last year, almost 3,700 related to behaviour.
Separately, the NCSE apologised for “any and all upset and uncertainty” caused by a review of SNA allocations.
John Kearney, chief executive of the NCSE, told the committee it “duly notes and apologises for any and all upset and uncertainty caused to children, parents, special-needs assistants and school communities in recent weeks”.
“This was never our intention,” he said.
Last month, Minister for Education and Youth Hildegarde Naughton announced a pause to the review of SNA allocations following concerns raised by parents and schools.
A total of 584 reviews had been carried out, with two-thirds of schools set to retain or grow their SNA allocation for 2026. However, 194 schools would see their allocation cut.
The Government subsequently announced an extra €19 million would be spent on SNAs this year to ensure there were no cuts to existing service provision in schools.
