State role on special tuition defended

THE Government “does not force” any parent into court to get special education for their children, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern insisted yesterday.

Mr Ahern was responding in the Dáil to Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who said there were approximately 150 such cases waiting to be heard in the High Court.

Mr Kenny said 11,000 children presented with special needs each year. Despite this, parents had to wait between two and seven years to get an assessment for their children, which was “a national scandal”.

He claimed the Government and the Education Minister were “implacably opposed” to any extension of the applied behavioural analysis (ABA) educational system beyond the 12 ABA schools funded on a pilot basis by the State.

“This causes parents enormous consternation and anger, some of whom are before the High Court, as I speak, to defend their right to have the State provide the most appropriate education for their children,” said Mr Kenny.

He also queried why the Government had failed to put in place an appeals mechanism for parents that would prevent them having to go to court.

But the Taoiseach responded: “The Government does not force anyone into the High Court.

“When parents choose to take a case against the State, and the department or agencies involved are satisfied that what is being provided is correct, the latter must defend the action, which is what has happened in a number of cases.”

Mr Ahern said ABA was only one method and the Government believed children with autism should have access to a range of “different approaches”.

Government policy was now focused on educating autistic children in special classes in mainstream schools, he said.

“New ABA centres have not been approved in recent years because a network of special classes is now available. Consequently, it is not that the minister is opposed to extending them but rather a range of special classes now exists.”

But Mr Kenny argued that “the social experiment of putting all the children with special educational needs into mainstream schools is not working as envisaged”.

A lack of resources for schools was one of the key reasons for this, Mr Kenny claimed.

But Education Minister Mary Hanafin later claimed Mr Kenny should apologise for his choice of language: “Enda Kenny must apologise for the shameful, insensitive and ill-informed remarks he made in the Dáil.

“To refer to the desire of parents to send their child with special needs to a local school, where they have can have both access to specialist supports and the chance to mix with other children from their area, as a ‘social experiment’ is insulting in the extreme.”