Recent cases highlight the requirement for an Education ombudsman

The starting point should be the person with adisability seeking help, writes Michael Clifford

THE recent case of 13-year-old schoolboy Paddy Flynn shows the value of public shaming. The boy from a Traveller background was denied a place in his local second-level school until pressure from the story, broadcast by RTÉ, became too much for the school authorities.

The station’s Emma O’Kelly broke the story and then followed up with detail which showed the line being spun by De La Salle secondary school in Dublin’s Ballyfermot didn’t really stack up. The school said that the child’s application was too late. No provision was given to the fact that Paddy’s parents can’t read or write and therefore didn’t respond to the initial application form.