{"id":16238,"date":"2026-02-20T13:02:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T13:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=16238"},"modified":"2026-02-20T13:02:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T13:02:47","slug":"government-must-get-on-top-of-shambolic-sna-allocation-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/government-must-get-on-top-of-shambolic-sna-allocation-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Government must get on top of shambolic SNA allocation review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The government is making it up as it goes along when it comes to a review of SNA allocations, according to Social Democrats spokesperson for children Aidan Farrelly.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Farrelly said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government created utter turmoil for families and schools this week with its botched SNA review, which was abruptly paused on Tuesday in response to growing public anger.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, one of the ministers responsible for this shambles, Special Education Minister Michael Moynihan, said that there is \u201cno point\u201d in providing a completion date for this review.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is clear that the government is making it up as it goes along when it comes to this SNA review &#8211; and is leaving chaos and anxiety in its wake.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParents, children and school communities remain in the dark about this process and are hugely concerned about the prospect of losing critical special education supports in the autumn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is an indictment of this government\u2019s disastrous approach to this issue that the Minister cannot give any information about what this review will entail and how long it will take.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKey to all of this is the government\u2019s attempt to narrow the entitlement to SNA support to children with physical needs &#8211; and strip support from children who need SNA assistance to help with emotional regulation, behaviour management and access to education.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government must get its act together and commit to urgently publishing the SNA workforce plan to bring clarity to this issue, and stop treating SNAs like chess pieces on a board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>February 20th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The government is making it up as it goes along when it comes to a review of SNA allocations, according to Social Democrats spokesperson for children Aidan Farrelly. Deputy Farrelly said: \u201cThe government created utter turmoil for families and schools this week with its botched SNA review, which was abruptly paused on Tuesday in response [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,218,7,678],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aidan-farrelly","category-education","category-press-release","category-special-education"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Government must get on top of shambolic SNA allocation review - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/government-must-get-on-top-of-shambolic-sna-allocation-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Government must get on top of shambolic SNA allocation review - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The government is making it up as it goes along when it comes to a review of SNA allocations, according to Social Democrats spokesperson for children Aidan Farrelly. 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