Special Needs Assistants in schools are to be reassigned temporarily to other duties in essential public services as part of the state's response to Covid-19.
Under plans announced by the Minister for Education today a process has been set up by the Public Appointments Service to put the country's 16,000 SNAs on standby to free up frontline workers for essential services.
They will be asked to replace nurses and other medical staff in settings such as community healthcare facilities for children with disabilities so that those healthcare staff can transfer to frontline services.
The move is part of a wider temporary assignment programme which is opening up for public sector employees. Under the centralised process other SNAs will be asked