Parents will plead with minister to reverse cuts at special needs school

Parents of children with special needs whose school services have been reduced dramatically will personally plead with Health Minister James Reilly to reverse the cuts.

The outcry is over cutbacks at St Francis Special School in Beaufort, Co Kerry, attended by 52 children with moderate to severe disabilities.

Parents claim the service provided by speech therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists and social workers has been slashed 90%.

At a public meeting in the school, politicians of all parties, along with independents, pledged full support for a campaign to restore full services.

Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin and colleague Arts Minister Jimmy Deenihan confirmed Dr Reilly would meet a deputation from the school next Saturday.

The minister is also to be asked to visit the school.

During the highly emotional meeting, parents said professional services were needed to ensure children could walk, sit, talk and eat and be helped to achieve a level of independence in their day-to-day lives.

“Constant intervention prevents more serious problems down the line,” said Sheila McCarthy, whose son James, 12, attends the school.

Donal Harrington told the meeting experts had said his teenage daughter, Georgia, would never walk but, due to the commitment and hard work of the school, she started walking at seven years of age. “If she came into this school today, she would never walk because of a lack of services.”

Chairwoman of the parents’ association, Mary Mahony said some children, who needed regular intervention, had had no services since last October.

Outlining the cuts, she said speech therapy had been available 20 hours per week, but there had been no regular service for six to seven months; 25 hours of occupational therapy was down to five hours while 25 hours of physiotherapy had been reduced to nine hours.

“This is unjust and a neglect of children who are amongst the most frail people in society. Enough is enough — we’re not taking any more (cuts).”

The HSE was not represented at the meeting but said in a statement that the school continued to have access to services because an enhanced pool of professionals was now working as part of a geographical team.

While acknowledging a temporary deficit in speech therapy and physiotherapy due to long-term sick leave, the HSE said the new social work service was a positive development for families.