THE DEPARTMENT of Education has been ordered by the High Court to review its decision requiring a secondary school to enrol a girl who is a member of a criminal family.
Mr Justice Michael Peart yesterday quashed a decision by an appeals committee appointed by the department requiring the school to take the girl in and directed the matter be reconsidered.
The school claimed the decision was unlawful because it failed to take into consideration its security concerns, including there were already children of a family of a rival gang to that in which the girl’s family was involved in the school.
The school said it feared there could be a serious incident and had refused her admission based on Garda advice.
The mother of the girl opposed the school’s bid to overturn the appeals committee decision. She denied she or her daughter were involved in criminal activity.
Just before proceedings began on Thursday, the department had agreed to set up a new committee but the hearing went ahead because the child’s mother wanted the earlier decision to stand.
In his decision ordering a new appeals committee to be set up, the judge said it was a difficult case with great sensitivities and care had to be taken as to how the enrolment decision was arrived at.
He found the appeals committee’s decision did not meet the proper standards which were required by law and he was remitting the matter to the department to appoint a new appeals committee to deal with it afresh.
The judge said he was concerned about the delay in having the matter dealt with because it was now only a month before the child would have to go to school and she would need to know what school she was going to on September 1st.
Counsel for the department said a new appeals committee could be set up within two weeks.
The judge ordered the department to pay the costs of both the school and the mother and ruled nothing could be published which would identify or tend to identify the girl.