Here we go again. Thorny political problem? Sure we can find a few bob to solve that.
The announcement late last night that the Government would move to resolve its self-created political difficulties over the potential loss of special needs assistants (SNAs) in some schools following a review of staffing requirements did not come as a shock to anyone.
Since the controversy blew up last week, the Government has been on the back foot. A week ago, it paused the process of reviewing and reallocating SNA posts. Now that process is going back to the drawing board.
No school will lose any SNA for the forthcoming academic year, 2026/27 – whatever their actual needs. Schools that have been told they will get additional SNAs will still get them. So, on top of the planned increase in SNA numbers generally (an additional 1,700 new SNAs are due to be recruited this year, bringing total numbers to nearly 25,000), there will be an additional increase in posts. This will cancel out the staff losses in the 200 or so schools who had been notified that they would lose some of their allocation of SNA posts.
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The cost of that this year will be €19 million, the Government said. This is new money, not coming from within the department’s existing budget. Of course, it’s €19 million next year as well. And the year after that.
But the significant thing is not the money. After all, the extra €19 million is hardly even a rounding error in an education budget that will reach €13.1 billion this year.
No, the significant thing is the Government has shown it is open for business when faced with vocal and well-organised campaigns. This lesson will not be lost on the vast constellation of interest groups who lobby – some with good cause, others less so – for preferential treatment by the public purse.
A couple of weeks ago, the Garda Representative Association signalled that its members would refuse to do voluntary overtime during the EU presidency unless travel and subsistence rates were improved. There will be plenty of others.
So what, you say. Isn’t this just how it always works? Government toughs it out and holds the line – until it doesn’t.
Perhaps that is how it will always work when the Government has spare cash (as this one does). But if there is one fundamental principle that both the Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers and his new budget-making colleague in the Department of Finance, Simon Harris, have consistently promised to adhere to since last year, it is that there will be no “in-year” spending increases: departments would have to stick to their allocated budgets, and that was that.
Well, that isn’t quite that, it seems. The lesson of this climbdown is clear: if the political pressure is sufficient, the Government will find the money to solve the problem. And that, in turn, makes it harder to hold the line on public spending in future. Don’t think all the watching special interests haven’t seen and understood what has just happened. Budget-making, and running stable public finances, just got more difficult.
