State hypocrisy on children’s rights

LAST year, the HSE and the ministers for Health and Children and for Education fought a five-year-old boy with special needs for a record-breaking 68 days in the High Court.

As the State employed two full legal teams, one for the ministers and the other for the HSE — and no expense was spared in terms of attending experts and witnesses against the child and his parents — the cost of the case will, when the accounts are done, be millions of euro.

The issue in the case was whether the boy would be allowed to continue to receive the applied behaviour analysis (ABA) education that was clearly benefiting him and that his assessments recommended as appropriate or whether he was to transfer to the generic, and inappropriate, school placement State policy dictated.