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 Education Minister Norma Foley and the National Council for Special Education to provide them with adequate and appropriate school education.
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.
Senior counsels Joe Jeffers and Michael O’Connell, 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 dozen schools.
Both senior counsel, who appeared with Brendan Hennessy for the families, outlined the stress faced by parents and guardians who did not have the abilities for home teaching of their children, some of whom have been waiting on school places for two years.
Mr Jeffers 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 involve children not receiving any education at the moment.
Mr O’Connell, who appeared 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 that found that some, but not enough, progress had been made by the education authorities.
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 of the cases until October 8th with directions that opposition papers be delivered four days before that date.
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