State is sued over failure to educate handicapped autistic man

The mother of an autistic and profoundly handicapped man has taken an unprecedented High Court action alleging the State has breached its constitutional obligation to provide free primary education for him.

For the first 18 years of his life, Mr Jamie Sinnott (22) got no more than two years of what could be described as education, his mother claims. As a result he has suffered and regressed.

Ms Catherine Sinnott, of Ballinhassig, Co Cork, was struck by the inequality of her son's education compared with that of her other eight non-handicapped children, her counsel, Mr Paul Sreenan SC, said.

He received no sustained education from the age of four, unlike his other siblings, and his first formal education in an Irish institution occurred when he was 11 years old. In the following years, that education was characterised by discontinuity, and he was 17 when he first attended an appropriate school.

That school, St Paul's at the COPE centre in Cork, sought to have him leave when he was 18, but his mother protested that his education was only beginning and secured another year.

However, the school refused to teach him for a third year and he was removed to another COPE centre which his mother considered inappropriate because the teachers were not qualified to deal with persons like her son, and there was no occupational, speech or physical therapy. He is still attending that centre.

Mr Sreenan said the State's attitude, until recently, was that the severely handicapped were not educable at all. That narrow view had never been supported by court decisions which held the severely handicapped were not just educable, but would greatly benefit from it.

The State also failed to promote or monitor education for the severely mentally handicapped, counsel said. Its role was to provide some funding to charitable bodies who ran programmes for the mentally handicapped, which mainly had a health, not an educational, focus.

This was not a discharge of the State's constitutional obligation to the severely handicapped, of whom there were at least 2,000. Jamie Sinnott had not received appropriate education from an early stage and had suffered as a result. But even now he could benefit and make up some ground if the State treated him equally.

Ms Sinnott and her son are seeking an order directing the State to provide appropriate education now, a declaration that the State has failed to do so to date, and damages for Jamie and Ms Sinnott for the suffering inflicted on them.

The action is against the Minister for Education and the State. It opened yesterday before Mr Justice Barr.

The court heard Ms Sinnott, who is a native of the US but has lived in Co Cork for many years, is separated from Jamie's father and has eight other children ranging in age from five to 25 years.

Mr Sreenan said Jamie was born on October 11th, 1977, and appeared normal until he was three months old. He was later diagnosed as autistic with severe mental impairment, epilepsy and poor muscle tone.

The case was that Jamie, throughout his life, had effectively been deprived of appropriate education and especially appropriate primary education as a result of which deprivation he and his mother had suffered damage.

Mr Sreenan said when Jamie was a baby his mother took him to the US, where his condition was diagnosed and it was advised that appropriate educational input, from early in life, would prove beneficial. The condition was confirmed in Ireland.

His mother had knocked on many doors and contacted many politicians and ministers seeking continued and appropriate education.

But Ms Sinnott was largely unsuccessful, Mr Sreenan said. Her son's educational history was characterised by discontinuity, inappropriate intervention and continual changes of schools and teachers. In his education, there were rare green islands of progress in what was otherwise a desert.

He had largely regressed as a direct consequence of the State's failure to provide appropriate education for him. The net result was that he was carrying a much greater disability on top of his existing disability. He could not avail of the basic right of communicating, and the continuous frustration of that was enormous.

The aim of education for the physically and mentally disabled was to encourage them to make the best possible use of their inherent capabilities. It involved educating them to do things others took for granted such as communications, toilet training and dressing skills.

The tragedy for Jamie and his family was that, despite the early intervention in the US when his condition was diagnosed and appropriate education received, and despite the Irish authorities having been provided with information on appropriate education, he did not receive that education. Intensive physical and language therapy was very important for autistic children, counsel said. They required early and vigorous intervention. Jamie had made great progress when he received therapeutic educational intervention in the US at three years old. It was then that he uttered a word for the first time: "No". However, he had not spoken since.

His mother sought from Irish institutions similar treatment to that made available to her son in Chicago in 1980 but to no avail. Whatever education was provided, there was virtually no speech therapy, and Jamie today could not speak, but only make sounds or grunts.

Jamie would always need primary or basic education and would always benefit from it and make progress. The obligation to provide free primary education was not limited to children but extended to all.

The case continues today.