It is “absolutely outrageous” that a Government Minister would name four primary schools as “being the problem” when it comes to children with special educational needs accessing suitable education, Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has said.
Mr Ó Ríordáin said comments from the Minister of State for Special Education and Inclusion Josepha Madigan in a radio interview over the weekend were “regrettable” and that the Government should apologise.
Speaking on RTÉ radio on Saturday, Ms Madigan alleged that four named Dublin primary schools were “not engaging at all” with officials over plans to create more spaces for children with special educational needs. She said the schools would be compelled to open special classes if they continued to refuse to do so.
One of the four schools that Ms Madigan claimed was not engaging, Cromcastle Green Boys National School in Artane, rejected her accusations as “incorrect”. Another named school, St John of God Girls National School, described Ms Madigan’s remarks as “a complete misrepresentation”.
Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday, Mr Ó Ríordáin said this was not “the first time this particular Minister has let us all down”.
“I think it is absolutely outrageous that a Minister of Government would name four schools as being the problem or to insinuate that four schools are the problem,” he said.
The Dublin Bay North TD said Ms Madigan had decided to “isolate” and name four Deis schools as being the problem, “all of whom are engaging with the system”.
“The Minister has not even bothered to apologise for her misinformation and mischaracterisation of these four Deis schools,” Mr Ó Ríordáin added.
“Maybe the Minister is completely unaware of what a Deis school does, or how a Deis school serves the community around it. There are challenges within those Deis schools that I’m quite sure the Minister in her own constituency [Dublin-Rathdown] hasn’t got a clue about.
“For her to name and shame those schools and to shift her responsibility and the responsibility of Government to that, I thought was really regrettable. I think Government have to take account for that and apologise for it and to never do it again.”
The Labour TD was speaking as his party’s Autism Bill 2022 was being debated, which proposes a National Autism Strategy to address the “inadequacy of services for people with autism and their families”.
Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said while the Government would not oppose the Bill, the Government believed that legislation was not the “most appropriate vehicle for advancing the objectives of the Bill”.
Mr O’Gorman said primary legislation may not evolve “sufficiently quickly” to address changing realities and in view of the work already underway to develop a national action on autism.
