Judge directs fresh hearing over special needs place for child

A primary school has won its High Court challenge over a direction requiring it to enrol a child to a class for students with special speech and language needs.

The school received 17 applications for three places available in the class and the mother of one of the unsuccessful applicants had appealed its decision not to enrol her child.

The school defended its decision on grounds including that its policy is to allocate places to those children that need it most.

In his judgment on Tuesday, Mr Justice Paul Coffey quashed the recommendation by a three person appeals committee that the school enrol the child. He directed that the matter be heard by a differently constituted committee.

Neither the school nor child can be identified for legal reasons.

Failed to get a place

The case arose after the child failed to get a place in the class starting last September.

The child’s mother appealed to a three person committee established by the Department of Education under Section 29 of the 1998 Education Act. The committee granted the appeal and recommended to the Department that the child be enrolled.

In its proceedings, the school board of management said its policy is to work with relevant professionals to assesses the needs of individual applicant children before deciding who gets a place in the class.

Its policy is to allocate places to those children most in need and the committee’s decision meant it was directed to enrol the student when there was no place for him, it said.

It claimed the committee’s decision was wrong, irrational and unreasonable and was made in breach of fair procedures.

The proceedings were against the Secretary General of the Department and the three person committee who denied the claims. The respondents argued the school’s admission policy was fundamentally deficient and did not set out the criteria for the allocation of places in the event of oversubscription for places.

Admissions policy

In his judgment, Mr Justice Coffey agreed the published admissions policy did not set out criteria the allocation of places in the speech and language class in the event of oversubscription.

This was “both surprising and regrettable” having regard to the evidence that the speech and language class had been “heavily oversubscribed for many years.”

However, the appeals committee decision to recommend the child be given a place in the class was “manifestly unfair” to the other unsuccessful applicants, who were no less eligible, he found.

The recommendation was also unsatisfactory because it was unclear whether the allocation of a place was to be at the expense of one of the three successful applicants, or none.

In the absence of an operable and effective published admission policy to deal with oversubscription, the committee should have remitted the matter to the school’s board of management with a recommendation it adopt such a policy, he said.