Parents of over 160 autistic children told no special needs spaces available

High Court reporter

Distressed parents and guardians of more than 160 autistic children have been told the State has no special needs educational facilities for them weeks after the start of the current school term, the High Court heard on Friday.

Ms Justice Margaret Bolger granted leave to half a dozen applicants to apply for orders directing Minister for Education, Norma Foley and the National Council for Special Education to provide them with adequate and appropriate school education.

Barristers Joe Jeffers SC and Michael O’Connell SC, representing six children aged between five and 14, told the court that applications for spaces in schools with facilities for teaching special needs children had been turned down by more than a d0zen schools.

Both senior counsel, who appeared with Brendan Hennesy BL, outlined the stress faced by parents and guardians who did not have the abilities for home teaching of their children, some of whom had been waiting for two years. One child of six had never even been accepted primary education assistance.

Mr Jeffers, who appeared with Patrick O’Neill of O’Neill Litigation Solicitors, said a number of other applicants had already been granted leave for orders against the State and a provisional date for the hearing of a test case had been set down for November.

Some of the cases now being listed behind that test case involved children not receiving any education.

Mr O’Connell, who appeared with Niamh Maher of Healy Law Solicitors, for three applicants told Judge Bolger one of the parents of a child aged five had been told by schools in the south of the country they had no room for him even to start a primary special needs class.

Judge Bolger was told that the Ombudsman, two years on from a study of planning for the provision of school places for children with special educational needs, had last week issued a report which found that some, but not enough, progress had been made by the education authorities.

Mr Jeffers said that in all the applications before the court there were individual if similar facts with subtle differences.

One mother told the court in an affidavit that she had been left in “a truly intolerable position” whereby the school year had started for yet another year and her son still had not received an indication of a possible place being available for him.

Judge Bolger, who heard that the families had come to court as a last resort, said she was satisfied to grant the parties leave and returned all the cases until October 8th with directions that opposition papers be delivered four days before that date.