'Don't put obstacles in front of my son': Disability funding awarded after public appeal

Eoghan Clonan has received an offer of a place to study Arts at Dublin Business School.

The father of a disabled boy has lamented the distress caused to him and his family after the initial "insane bureaucratic" decision by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) not to award disability support funding to his son's university as the institution was a private college. 

Dr Tom Clonan, an academic, journalist, and activist, said he and his son Eoghan, 19, were delighted when he received an offer from the Central Applications Office (CAO) to study Arts at Dublin Business School (DBS) after completing his Leaving Certificate after a challenging Covid-interrupted year. 

However, their joy was short-lived when DBS informed them that the HEA had made a decision not to award the university funding from the Fund for Students with Disabilities as it was a private institution. 

Frustrated and in despair, Dr Clonan took to social media to raise awareness but said the situation was familiar to any parent of children with disabilities in Ireland as "you have to fight for everything". 

Eoghan, who developed a neuromuscular disease and has profound physical needs, would not be able to attend his course at DBS without access to the supports offered by the funding, said Dr Clonan. 

"We applied for that course in good faith from the CAO," said Dr Clonan, "and the offer came through the CAO. [...] He was being denied access to college as a person with a disability for a very unfair reason. The support should go to him not the college. 

"It was just an insane bureaucratic reason and I felt very strongly if that was going to be the case, then the CAO should have written on their literature: 'Disabled people need not reply for the following courses'. 

"But of course they couldn't do that because that would be explicitly discriminatory," he said. "It was just a really arbitrary, unfair inexplicable decision." 

Dr Clonan's appeal quickly spread last night and prompted an intervention from Higher Education Minister Simon Harris. 

A decision was made after a review from the Higher Education to extend HEA support funding to Eoghan and DBS and to all other students with disabilities attending private third-level education institutes. 

Mr Harris confirmed to Dr Clonan the rule change in a phone call and said the new regulation would be permanent. 

"Minister Harris wishes to thank Tom Clonan for highlighting this issue and is grateful for working with him on the matter.

"The department is working with the HEA to consider the issues raised regarding the Fund for Students with Disabilities and how it can be expanded and improved," a statement from the department said. 

The latest barrier that Eoghan faced is typical of his experience growing up in Ireland said Dr Clonan and described Ireland as the worst country in the EU to raise a child with a disability. 

"Over the years we have had to fight for everything. Every day you have to fight with a different agency, as parents and carers," said Dr Clonan. 

Pleased with the outcome for his son, the father called on other institutions and organisations to stop placing obstacles in front of people with disabilities. 

"Don't put obstacles in front of my son and other people like him, think of ways to help him instead of inventing ways to exclude them," he said.