Pupils with autism ‘treated like second-class citizens’

Autism charity Shine’s chief executive has said three special needs children being taught in a windowless store room at a new €4.2m primary school “are being treated like second-class citizens”.

Kieran Kennedy said because the children were enrolled at the school in Cobh, Co Cork, four or five years ago they should have been given priority over new entrants.

Marcia Fleming, mother of 10-year-old Crea, has withdrawn her daughter from Rushbrooke National School in protest.