Mum’s arrest ordered after son misses school

A judge has ordered the arrest of a mother who admitted she “put her head in the sand” while her 11-year-old child missed 133 school days last year.

The child wants to go to school but his mother “is dragging him down”, Judge John O’Neill said yesterday as he issued a bench warrant.

The woman is facing prosecution by the Child and Family Agency at Dublin District Court as a result of the massive number of school days her son missed.

She pleaded guilty earlier this year but failed to turn up to court when the case resumed yesterday. Efforts to contact her were unsuccessful.

She could be fined up to €1,000 and jailed for a month for breaking the Education (Welfare) Act for not complying with an official warning to ensure her child went to school.

Judge John O’Neill heard from agency solicitor Dorothy Ware that “matters have gone down hill” and the mother did not show up for meetings with an education and welfare officer.

Judge O’Neill was furnished with welfare reports on the 11-year-old.

Issuing a bench warrant for her arrest, he said “this is terrible”. He said the woman’s son was bright, well behaved, gets on well with others and “anxious to get on well in school” and “happy in school”. However, said Judge O’Neill, “his mother’s attitude is dragging him down”.

The court had been told that in the academic year beginning in September 2014, the boy “has been absent for 133 days”. Up until the start of May he had an attendance rate of 11%.

A school attendance notice was sent to the mother in November but the child did not return to school for about five months.

An education and welfare officer said its office has been involved since 2012 and this was the second time a school attendance notice was sent to the woman. She has not co-operated with the officer despite 15 home visits and 27 letters being sent to her.

Fifteen meetings with the school were arranged but she did not attend any of them, the court was also told.

The child missed 40 days in the previous school year, and had a 60% attendance rate in the year before that, Judge O’Neill was told.