St Killian's pupils suffer due to inadequate facilities, minister hears
Minister for special education and inclusion Michael Moynihan at St Killian's school
in Mayfield, Cork, with principal Sue Lenihan, parent Fiona Coughlan, parents' association chairwoman Suzanne O'Flynn, and vice principal Mary O'Connor. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
Children are suffering due to entirely inadequate facilities at Cork’s largest special school, the minister for special education was told when he visited St Killian’s special school in Cork on Friday.
“The building lets us down,” principal Sue Lenihan said.
“It’s not right. The children are awe-inspiring. Despite their challenges and very complex needs, they are brilliant.
“They are such special children and when they have the right environment, their personalities and their gifts really come out.”
Although a new building for the school is in planning stage, Ms Lenihan is hoping for interim measures to make the existing space more accessible until the new school can be built to at least accommodate children with mobility issues on the ground floor.
The school cannot currently accommodate wheelchair users and others with mobility issues as there are no lifts and steps lead between the various rooms even on ground floor level.
Some 100 children are on the waiting list and 107 children attend the school in Mayfield in Cork city’s northside.
The school is “a lifeline” to parents of children with multiple diagnoses, Fiona Coughlan, parent and member of advocacy group, Cork Parents Unite, said.
“Coming up to the school, it looks so drab and dreary. The building is not functional,” she said.
“But when you walk in the door you just feel so much love.
“And this is the only place our children can go. Children are coming from as far as Limerick because so few places can take children with multiple diagnoses.
“St Killian’s takes extremely complex cases and children with extremely challenging behaviour.”
St Killian’s had no permanent premises until the Diocese of Cork and Ross gave them access to an old, empty primary school.
However, the building over three floors has many staircases and no lifts — a major problem for its children with mobility issues, sensory challenges, and wheelchair users.
“We just need a new school,” said parent and parents’ board chairwoman Suzanne O’Flynn said.
“Every child deserves safe and appropriate facilities. It should be a given in 2025 that our children have somewhere safe and appropriate to go to school.”
Minister for special education and inclusion Michael Moynihan assured the school that, as soon as paperwork is submitted on new building plans for the school, he and fellow Fianna Fáil Cork TD Padraig O’Sullivan would work to push the plans forward.
Mr Moynihan said that while he “was not here to make any wild promises” he would “work extremely hard” in his brief for children with disabilities, and in helping St Killian’s development progress.
He said it is a priority to make sure the various departments responsible for children with disabilities — health, education, disability, children and equality — are “all talking to each other” so vital services can no longer slip between cracks in departments.
“We have to make sure that the silos are talking to each other and that we break down the barriers that are there between the various bodies.”
Returning therapists to special schools — removed under a HSE reorganisation of disability services in 2018 — is also now a major government priority, he said.
St Killian’s is currently one of 16 special schools nationwide included in a government pilot scheme to reintroduce therapists to schools.
Ms Lenihan said that, without therapists, teachers cannot do their job because therapy is the vital foundation for getting children with complex additional needs to a comfortable, regulated place from which they can begin to learn.
Therapists in schools also guide teachers how to better support the children there, vice principal Mary O’Connor said.
However, since therapists were removed in 2018, younger teachers in the school have had no exposure to these extra and very valuable learnings, Ms O’Connor said.
“And when children are in the right class, with the right supports in the right environment, you see the change so quickly in their behaviour, in their ability to learn.
“It’s miraculous,” Ms Lenihan said. "Within weeks you see a huge difference."
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