Fórsa has called on the Government to clarify revelations that special needs assistants (SNAs) working in special schools in Wicklow, Dún Laoghaire and south-east Dublin received Covid-19 vaccinations earlier this week.

The union said the development was welcome, and said it wanted to see a nationwide rollout, from the health minister’s constituency, to special school-based SNAs nationwide.

Last week, Fórsa asked the Government to review its decision to remove special needs assistants (SNAs) from the Covid-19 vaccine priority list and to include them under ‘category nine’ of its revised vaccine schedule, which includes people aged 16-64 who work in crowded settings.

In a letter to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, the union’s head of education, Andy Pike, said that SNAs work in crowded settings where social distancing is not possible, and that SNAs provide the same care to students as staff in HSE disability services.

“There are few other groups outside health and social care who work on a consistent basis providing intimate care without the ability to maintain social distancing,” he wrote.

Andy spoke on Monday’s edition of RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme, and said many SNAs are working alongside nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists who have been vaccinated, yet the SNAs working alongside them day-to-day will not be vaccinated.

“That’s just not a sustainable situation where you vaccinate half your workforce but the other half you just ignore,” he said.

Andy added that many of the SNAs currently working in schools had started working when the statutory SNA scheme was first established, with many now over the age of 50, which places them at greater risk should they contract Covid-19.

He said many SNAs are parents of students with special education needs, and had real concerns about carrying infection back into their homes, and said the concerns of SNAs include the high risk of work absence due to Covid infection, and the negative impact that this would have on students with special education needs.

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