With respect to those who are understandably upset about the SNA cuts in Ireland, we need to move away from this constant petition-after-the-fact way of responding. What is happening in special education in Ireland has not arrived suddenly. It has been building for years. We are in a slow, grinding bicycle race towards failure, and everyone involved has been pedalling along, watching it unfold, while hoping someone else would pull the brakes.

Teacher unions do not frame this as a teacher issue. Opposition TDs find their voices once the damage is already done. Meanwhile, policy changes quietly roll out, guidelines shift, supports are narrowed, and deployment models are revised, all without meaningful public challenge at the time it matters. Then, when the consequences finally land in classrooms and families feel the impact, we scramble for petitions and statements and outrage. By then, the decisions are already embedded.

This didn’t happen overnight. It is the result of years of inadequate planning, quiet restructuring, and political avoidance. We are slow-walking into this crisis, and pretending otherwise only delays accountability. If we are serious about protecting children with additional needs, we have to stop reacting after the fact and start naming what is happening in real time. And we also have to own, collectively, that we allowed this trajectory to continue unchallenged for far too long.