Mother says home schooling law ‘unjust’

A mother-of-six jailed for refusing to pay a fine for not registering her children for home schooling has said she believes she has a constitutional right to educate her children without assessment by the State.

Monica O’Connor, 47, was arrested at her home in Tullow, Co Carlow, by appointment at 7.20am yesterday and brought to Mountjoy Prison, but was granted temporary release shortly before 1pm.

She and her husband Eddie O’Neill, 49, were found guilty last year of failing to cause their children to attend school after they refused to register them for home schooling.

They were fined €2,000 by Carlow District Court in June but did not pay the fine.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Liveline, Ms O’Connell said she had no objection to an assessment of the home schooling provided to foster children, but disagreed the education she provides to her own children should be subject to scrutiny.

“We have six children between the ages of six and 27, they’ve always been home educated for their primary years. The older three are adults now, two of them did the Leaving Cert, one of them is in third year in college now after no Leaving Cert. They’ve all done some third level and they’re all out in the world, doing their thing.

“We’ve allowed assessment for education provision for a foster child but we do feel that with our own children, when the Constitution of Ireland says the State acknowledges parents as the prime educators, that parents are free to provide this at home, but yet there is a law that says we have to allow this assessment.

“We believes that dilutes the right to such a point where it says ‘yes Joe Duffy, you’re a good enough parent to home educate but no, Monica O’Connor, you’re not.’

“We don’t see education as being separate for us from our parenting,” she said.

“For us there is no day where we take the chalk or the bucket and spade out of the child’s hand and say ‘today you are going to be educated, today we are going to teach you something.’”

Ms O’Connor said she had an “upsetting couple of days” having been notified of her impending arrest and that she expects her husband will be arrested sometime before Christmas.

“There has been law in every country at every time in history that has been unjust. When my two grannies were born at the turn of the century, they weren’t allowed to vote. There was a time when only men could vote, there was a time when only men with property could vote. There was a time when if you were black you could only sit on a certain part of a bus,” she said.

She said their six children, Darragh, 27, Oisín, 20, Emmet, 19, Oran, 13, Elva, 10, and Eamon, 6, fully support their parents actions.

Darragh is now working in a golf bar in Hawaii, Oisín is studying drama in Dublin, while Emmet is in DIT studying for a degree in music.

“We feel as if we have been in a limbo land. We believe that what is happening to us is an attack on the family.

“We are standing up for a principle. A few weeks ago, I was in Dublin at the Zoo with some of the children and when I was driving up there, I thought to myself, that the next time I will be on this road I will be in the back of a Garda car heading to jail.”