Some schools are turning away students with special needs because they do not want them, the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said yesterday.
He said he had direct knowledge that this was happening, but he believed it only concerned a very small number of cases.
The Minister was addressing the Committee on the Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill as he considered amendments.
The Bill states that the new National Council for Special Education would have the power to designate a school to which a child with special needs be sent.
Mr Dempsey said this provision was included because of the reluctance of certain schools to accept these children.
They refused to take them under the guise that they didn't have the necessary resources. "In some cases that's just a cover for the fact that they don't actually want to have children with special needs in the school."
He made the comments following questioning from the Labour Party education spokeswoman, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, on why the consent of parents was not specifically mentioned in this part of the Bill. He said it was not necessary to mention parents as their rights were already protected in the Constitution.
Sinn Féin deputy Mr Arthur Morgan said nobody could argue that the policies implemented for the education of children with special needs in the past were a model of best practice.
A provision that principals be provided with the necessary support to implement education plans, subject to resources, was criticised by the Green Party's Mr Paul Gogarty.
Fine Gael education spokeswoman Ms Olwyn Enright said if principals were being given the responsibility for education plans then they should be given the resources.
Her colleague, Mr David Stanton, said the new national council would not be independent enough because its policy would be decided by the Minister for Education. "A less warm-hearted" Minister than Mr Dempsey might take a different attitude to the education of people with special needs.
