'It wouldn’t be acceptable in a mainstream school, so why should we have to take it?'

Carrigaline Community Special School issued 17 suspensions in three years — with one parent saying most children in the school 'would not understand the concept of suspension'

Carrigaline Community Special School was the first of three special schools opened under the patronage of Cork Education and Training Board (ETB) between 2021 and 2023. Picture: iStock

In 2021, with the country still in the grip of the pandemic, a group of parents in Cork was desperately trying to highlight how their children had nowhere to go to school.

As they turned 12, a sizeable group of students with a dual diagnosis of autism and an intellectual disability due to move on to senior schools had been left in limbo.