Principal begs Minister to provide €5,000 for disabled children’s camp

A SCHOOL principal fighting to give severely disabled students a summer camp appealed to Education Minister Noel Dempsey directly yesterday to give him €5,000 for the project.

The Department of Education is refusing to give the Enable Ireland school in Dublin the money to provide seven of its most disabled pupils with a summer camp. It says that the available funding is only for autistic students.

"We have the most physically and mentally disabled children in the country and the Department are discriminating against them because they are not autistic well, I worked with autistic children and I can tell you that our students are equally as disabled," the school principal Brendan Hennigan said.

He said the students desperately need the summer camp because school gives a structure to their day and the two-month holiday is a terrible time for them and their parents.

"We had one poor girl who cried every day last year during the holidays because she could not come to school and see her friends," he added.

Special schools, like the Enable Ireland one in Dublin and the five others which cater for the country's most disabled children, are the forgotten schools, according to Mr Hennigan.

"I would appeal to the Minister to re-think his decision not to provide money for this project. If he came out and saw the children I know he would," he said.

Independent TD Finian McGrath said the Minister's refusal to fund this special summer school for the severely disabled students is a major stab in the back to the rights of the disabled.

The Minister gave a commitment in the Dáil a few weeks ago that children with disability would not lose out because of funding shortages, the Dublin North Central TD added.

"It is ironic now that his Department is refusing to fund a very essential programme and this makes a mockery of all the talk in the last couple of weeks about rights for the disabled," he said.

Both the principal and parents of the school were very upset when they contacted Mr McGrath to complain about the lack of funding.

"This is an absolute disgrace and a stab in the back for the disability equality rights," he added.

The Department of Education failed to respond to this fresh appeal for funding or claims that the Minister had gone back on his commitment to the disabled.