A SETTLEMENT has been reached in a High Court dispute over the Department of Education’s decision to order a primary school in the southeast to accept two special needs children. The school had insisted that it had just one place available.
The school board of management had brought judicial review proceedings over decisions by the department requiring it to accept the two boys, who were diagnosed with autism.
The proceedings arose when the parents of both children appealed to the department against the school’s refusal to take them. The appeals were made to a committee established under Section 29 of the Education Act which considers appeals in relation to children who have been expelled, suspended or refused enrolment.
One of the children, aged 10, was fourth on a waiting list at the school. Following the committee’s recommendation, the Department of Education ordered the school to enrol him.
The second child, aged four, had been top of the waiting list and had been offered a place but, as a result of the committee’s recommendation in relation to the 10-year-old, his parents were then told he could not be enrolled. Their appeal against that decision was granted by a committee made up of different people to that which heard the appeal in relation to the 10-year-old.
In its proceedings, the school claimed it had acted within its enrolment policy and the appeals committee was not entitled to disregard that policy.
It sought orders quashing the committee’s decisions and declarations that the committee had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeals and had acted in breach of natural and constitutional justice. The school’s essential position was that its enrolment policy should have been adhered to, which would have meant the four-year-old had priority over the 10-year-old because the former was first on the waiting list.
When the case was before the court last September, the department said it intended to allocate more resources and appoint special needs assistants, which would create two places at the school’s specialist education unit.
Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O’Neill was told yesterday that the issues had been resolved.