‘Education should get money, not legal fees’

TAXPAYERS’ money should be spent providing education for children with disabilities instead of the €11 million paid in legal fees of families going to court to seek services, the Labour Party said yesterday.

Department of Education figures show that between 2003 and 2007, €11.2m was paid in legal fees to solicitors for children with special educational needs and ex-gratia payments of another €1.3m were made in the same five years.

However, Labour equality spokeswoman Kathleen Lynch, who received the information in a Dáil response from Education Minister Mary Hanafin, said no account is given of the State’s legal costs, which are absorbed by the Chief State Solicitor’s office.

She said the latest High Court costs ruling, in which legal fees of an estimated €5m incurred by the parents of Co Wicklow autistic boy, Seán Ó Cuanacháin, were not awarded to them, highlights the outrageous use of public money on these cases. The State is estimated to have accrued costs of about €2m in the 68-day hearing after which the High Court ruled last March that appropriate education was being offered by the Department of Education, despite the family’s claim to fund Sean’s high-support applied behavioural analysis tuition.

“We don’t know either how much is being paid to expert witnesses brought in by the State when these cases come to court, but all this money should be invested in proper education services,” said Ms Lynch.

“Anyone with a child in mainstream education usually has a choice of the type of school they wish to go to, they might want an all-Irish school, or one of a particular faith. But parents of autistic children are being told they have only one choice available from the State,” she said.

Ms Hanafin said that the number of new cases being brought against her department by parents of autistic children had fallen significantly to just five last year.

“This is because we are continuing to expand services for children with autism and we opened nearly 100 autism units in mainstream schools last year,” she said.

“Children with autism have a range of needs, ABA is just one method which deals with behaviour, and these units include ABA but also other types of teaching to help with social skills and communication,” Ms Hanafin added.

Although the court ruled that the principles of the Ó Cuanacháin case were not significant enough to warrant the awarding of parents Cian and Yvonne’s costs, hundreds of families considering or already taking legal action are believed to have been awaiting the outcome anxiously as it may influence future judgments.

There were about 75 cases brought by families of children with special educational needs against the State still pending in the courts before Christmas.