‘Cuts have little regard to the children’s needs’

GRACE Kearney was mixing well with her fellow pupils at her local primary school until her special needs support was cut to one-sixth its previous levels and she had to move schools.

She was born with microcephaly, which means she has a small head and brain, and that she is severely visually impaired and has learning difficulties.

The 12-year-old’s parents, Mike and Judith, were delighted at her progress in the primary school near their home in Cratloe, Co Clare, where she had the help of a special needs assistant (SNA) for 30 hours a week.

“She was always a bit behind the other kids but she was progressing well with the help of her SNA who would, for example, make enlarged letters for her to do spellings she could not do with the ordinary textbook because of her visual impairment,” explained Mike.

But when a review of SNAs in the school meant her support was cut from 30 hours to just five hours a week in the term before summer holidays last year, Grace’s parents felt it would have been impossible for her to survive and learn in a class o f 30 pupils without her SNA there most of the time. They moved her to a special school for children with mild general learning disabilities, where she has been getting on well, but Mike claims it goes against Government policy to have had to move her.

“They’re telling everyone they want to integrate children with special needs but it is impossible when they’re making invidious and underhand cuts like this with little regard to the children’s educational needs. We were lucky to get Grace into a special school but our fear is for other families who might not be as lucky when their child’s SNA hours are cut,” he said.

He and Judith are members of the Special Needs Parents Association, set up to oppose the cuts in SNA numbers arising from the review of school supports by the National Council for Special Education given to new Education Minister Mary Coughlan this week.

The group protested outside the Dáil on Wednesday evening, where a Fine Gael motion called for a freeze in the cuts to SNAs and a right of appeal for parents of children who have lost a special needs assistant.