Fórsa trade union has said it expects the Department of Education and Skills to meet its own deadline on the publication of SNA allocations for the 2018/2019 school year.

The union has maintained regular contact with the department on the issue following a 97% vote in favour of SNA industrial action last year.

The ballot followed four successive years where SNA allocations were published very late. In 2017 the allocations weren’t published until July, which meant that hundreds of SNAs finished the school year without knowing if they would have a job the following September.

Education minister Richard Bruton subsequently pledged that schools will be informed of their SNA allocation for the 2018/19 school year by the end of May 2018.

Deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said the need for certainty on the allocations was communicated to the minister very clearly when he attended Fórsa’s education conference event in April.

Kevin said previous delays undermined the reasonable operation of previous agreements made with the department. “We’ve maintained contact with both the department and the Education Oversight Group on this issue.

“In the expectation that the commitments to publish the allocations by the end of May are met, this will allow our agreements on redeployment and fragmentation of posts to work effectively. We’re watching developments closely, as I know our members are too,” he said.

Assistant general secretary Sean Carabini added, “SNAs are counting down to the publication of these allocations. Certainty is essential, it affects how SNAs plan their time and finances over the summer period. Any delay would make that incredibly difficult to deal with for individual SNAs,” he said.