Serious opposition was expressed last night by groups working with autistic children to a new Bill from the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, which is meant to give new rights to children with special needs.
The Bill was described as "unconstitutional" and "deeply flawed", by Ms Kathryn Sinnott. She and the other representatives also sharply criticised the Government's decision to put the Bill before the Seanad last night.
The general secretary of the INTO, Sen Joe O'Toole, said the Bill was "a major own goal for the Government".
It was appalling that the Government was trying to push it through, even though few people seemed to have been consulted on its provisions.
Ms Sinnott said the Bill was a complete mess, and Dr Woods should scrap it and start again.
She said it would do virtually nothing for her son, Jamie, who was the subject of High Court and Supreme Court cases last year.
Mr Marc de Salvo, information officer of the Irish Autism Alliance, asked if the Department of Education had learned nothing in the last two years.
He said he and many others were worried that the Government would seek to push the Bill through this week before the current Dáil session ended.
No group he was aware of had been consulted, including his Saplings School in Co Kildare and the Cabas schools in Cork and Dublin.
A Fine Gael senator, Mr Maurice Manning, last night added his concerns and said the Government was engaged in a "cynical ploy".
He said TDs and senators had not had sufficient time to study the Bill, and the Government knew this but was pushing ahead anyway.
However, the Department of Education defended its position, saying the Minister was taking advantage of an opportunity in the Oireachtas to implement the Bill.
A spokeswoman said the Department had consulted widely and was relying heavily on the views expressed in the recent Taskforce on Autism which had in turn consulted many people in the area. She said the Minister regarded it as a high priority to get the Bill passed.
Ms Sinnott said it was important that every parent involved in the area stated their opposition to the Bill. "I hoped it would be a good Bill when it came out last week, but reading through it, it is rowing back on recent court judgments and setting up four new layers of bureaucracy," she said.
The Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill, Dr Woods said last week, would "establish unequivocally that the special education needs of children must be met as a matter of legal right". He also said it would be "rights-based".
However, Ms Sinnott said the Bill was based on "grace and favour" for people with special needs and, while the rights of children were enunciated in the Bill, they were qualified.
She said resources and services would be allocated to the "greatest extent possible"', but this was a way for the State to avoid giving special needs children an ultimate legal right. She also raised questions about whether the Bill was constitutional.
Dr Woods explained last week that the bill defined a child "as a person who is not less than three, nor older than 18 years of age, but allows for earlier intervention if necessary"'.
Ms Sinnott said a Bill could not do this because children were defined as existing much earlier. "No Bill can get involved in what is absolute personhood," she said.