News Release 24 February 2008

Educate Together Supports Castleknock Educate Together National School on Opening of Autism Unit

Last April, Castleknock Educate Together National School moved into its new building on Beechpark Avenue, Dublin 15. As part of this state-of-the-art building, a 12 child Special Needs Unit was included to provide services for children on the Autistic Spectrum. This unit was welcomed and fully supported by the school board, patron, staff, parents and whole community.

Educate Together strongly supports the concept of properly resourced integrated autism units in mainstream schools. When properly equipped and staffed, they greatly enhance the operations of an Educate Together school. A number of Educate Together schools have pioneered this approach and, according to DES statistics, Educate Together has a high proportion of such units compared to other mainstream primary sectors. There are 95 units in a total of 3,292 mainstream schools (3%) - of which 7 units are in the 44 Educate Together schools or 16%.

It is therefore a matter of great regret to Educate Together and the school that the Castleknock unit has not opened due to lack of State response. The unit has been provided with additional teaching staff but to-date, the health therapists vital to its operation have not been provided.

This is clearly a government responsibility.

It is disappointing that the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, has publicly called for this unit to open without vital services being available (RTE News Feb. 19 2008). Such a call implies that the Board of the school is obstructing the project and displays an attitude that seems primarily concerned in deflecting criticism of the government. It also implies that children with autism do not really require specialist health services. The appropriate response would have been for the Minister to intervene with her colleague the Minister for Health so that the services required are provided as soon as possible and to work with the school to ensure the unit opens without controversy or public comment.

The hectoring approach aimed at pressurising the school to act irresponsibly is not helpful.

The Board of Management of a school operating an Autism Unit is fully responsible for the services that it supplies and can be sued if such services are inadequate.
Asking a school to open a unit without services is tantamount to demanding the opening of a hospital ward without doctors. It is reckless, irresponsible and completely unacceptable.

The comments of the Minister are particularly disappointing the year after her Department pursued a case to the Supreme Court absolving the Department from legal responsibility for claims of damages against a school board.

The Minister's comments appear to echo the long resistance of the Department of Education to the cause of parents of children with special educational needs. It remains a national disgrace that successive generations of such parents had to campaign on these issues for so long and that they could only extract services after lengthy and difficult legal action.

Educate Together calls on the government to desist from maligning the reputation of the board of the Castleknock Educate Together National School and act in the interests of the families whose children need the services of this unit. The government must provide the resources needed as quickly as possible.