Newpark Comprehensive School has the largest special needs provision in Dublin, according to a survey last week. But many fee-paying schools make little contribution. This has to stop, argues former Newpark principal Derek West

In the beginning there was Michael (not his real name). He was extremely needy - his disability was Asperger's - and his mother was determined that he would participate in mainstream post-primary education. This was nearly a decade ago and so she did what you had to do in those days - she fought tooth and nail for her son's education; she lobbied her TDs, she door-stepped Bertie, she went on air with Gaybo, she wrote endless letters, she came to my principal's office and argued Michael's case.

He needed 12 hours of one-to-one learning with a resource teacher and the full-time attention of a special needs assistant (a level of support unthinkable today). In 1998, as the principal of a so-called progressive school on Dublin's southside, I hardly knew where to start looking for such people.

Yet, through the sort oserendipitous" miracles that characterised a lot of pioneering education work, the required facilities fell into place.

Michael stayed at the school until fifth year, taking some subjects in Junior Certificate, completing transition year and acquiring skills - both academic and social. I regard this as a triumphant educational success (though far beyond the radar of feeder-school lists). His presence in Newpark had an immense positive impact on teachers and students alike, while making no difference to the school's capacity to cater for the academic or the practical student.

This has continued to be the case. The school caters for a broad constituency (its capacity to send 72 per cent of graduates to third level testifies to its effectiveness) but since the early 1990s there have been many more Michaels enrolling at post-primary level. The numbers of special-needs students rose at Newpark by a kind of mathematical progression (from one boy to the current 10 per cent of the 790 students) and the school proceeded to find resource teachers, special needs assistants and space for one-to-one and small-group learning. This chimed perfectly with the original mission of the comprehensive school - non-selective entry (within the parameters of the catchment area), mixed-ability class-groups and recognition of the learning needs of individuals - while simultaneously tending to create an imbalance within the diverse school community.

The realities of this soaring demand precipitated a series of crises: the sheer increase of numbers placed huge logistical and organisational demands on the specialist staff. In addition, there was an audible swell of concerns from mainstream teachers, founded on the absence of in-service training, on the demands of an exam-dominated curriculum, on concerns about discipline, health and safety in the classroom - all emerging at a galloping pace that left everyone breathless.

This was further exacerbated by a continuing blurring of the concepts of learning and behavioural difficulties. There are expectations that special education is the catch-all to cope with all the problems in a school, or that it can be used as a "sin bin". This feeds erroneous perceptions of the schools that are genuinely addressing the issue of special education in parallel to mainstream teaching. The establishment of the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) and the appointment of Special Needs Organisers (Senos) has brought some degree of order and professionalism to the process. But as some schools have seen the balance of their populations shift to higher proportions of special education students, so too has the concept of the school, as a learning community, come under enormous pressure.

At Newpark, an attempt to gain some control over the situation, by establishing a limit to the number of special education places and to maintain a balanced range of abilities within the student cohort, failed through a series of appeals lodged under Section 29 of the Education Act, an early exemplar of the law not necessarily being able to accommodate, as a first priority, the needs of the child. It is unfortunate that the effort to place some structure became personalised through the obligation of parents to lodge the appeals on behalf of individual children. The appeals were upheld; the children entered an already stretched facility. There was no attempt in the process to spread the provision among local schools.

I have no doubt that this situation has been replicated in many schools across the country. There is much goodwill and professional concern to do the best for these children. However, the creeping realisation - confirmed by figures released by the Department of Education and published in this paper last Tuesday - has awakened many negative feelings.

The philosophy behind the educational and equality legislation is to address disadvantage, to incorporate social justice and equality of opportunity into the schools of Ireland. That applies to special education.

No-one said it was going to be easy, and over and over I have been impressed by the dedication and determination of teachers who can and will make it work.

But we are not playing on a level pitch: some schools are left holding the can and some schools, it seems, are contributing next to nothing to the provision of special education. There is no jostling to be number one in this particular table. The affluence of the tiger society is breeding a form of apartheid and "nimby-ism" - "Not inside my gated community, chum. . . I'm afraid we don't do special needs. . . Now why don't you try that community school down the road?"

Are schools to become enclaves of segregation, maintaining and bolstering a new class system, based on affluence, working to a selective curriculum of exclusivity and commodification, or are they to be active learning communities, places where integration, inclusion and understanding begin? Those schools carrying more than their fair share of this burden are justified in feeling resentful, frustrated and, ultimately, I fear, deeply disillusioned.

Minister Hanafin has expressed her horror at the revelations underlying the published figures. She has sent her inspectors out into the field to find the malpractices and abuses of admissions policies. But will she grasp the tiger by the tail? Will there be any action? Will there be legal action? Will she be able to achieve a more equitable balance, where every school in receipt of State funding plays its part in meeting the needs of all children?