TAOISEACH BERTIE Ahern said yesterday it was "a pity" that €22 million was spent by the State fighting court cases against parents seeking special needs education for children, but said the Department of Education only challenged cases if it believed it had followed correct procedures.
Yesterday the Irish Examinerreported that legal costs for such cases involving the Departments of Education and Health stood at €19.2 million since 2003, while settlements amounted to €2.7 million.
Mr Ahern said it would be preferable if this money was not spent on legal costs. "But what happens is, the Department of Education doesn't initiate these [ cases]," he said. The Department of Education did not take lightly any decision to defend cases involving children with special needs, Mr Ahern added.
"So people take them on and then they have to respond. The department does not initiate any such proceedings and cases are generally only litigated where no potential settlement is acceptable to both sides and the Government's authority to decide issues of policies is in question."
In reply to a parliamentary question, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, said her department was involved in 73 cases where children had special educational needs, but only four had gone to a full court hearing since 2003. One was still undecided while the other three went in the department's favour.
