Irish Examiner view: Scarcity of special education places is not good enough

Evidence shows us the current system is not fit for purpose

Wed, 05 Mar, 2025 - 01:00

The failure to provide adequate numbers of special education places has stained the records of successive governments, and the current administration is not off to a good start either. Today, the Irish Examiner tells the story of Sheila Casey Jones, who is considering a move from her home in north Cork to a part of Ireland where her two sons can attend special schools.

Ms Casey has been told that all special schools in Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Waterford, Tipperary, Clare, and Galway are full for this September, so she is looking into relocating to Laois or Kilkenny to avail of services in those counties.

By last December, she had applied to 29 mainstream schools with special classes open for a place for one of her sons and received 25 automatic rejection letters on the basis that the classes were full and waiting lists were full. She was then placed on four waiting lists.

This is a reality for many families in Ireland and is an abject failure on the part of the State. There is no other way to describe it. A lack of school places might be understandable in one county, but this is an entire province — over a quarter of the country when taking Galway into account.

This week, the minister of state for special education,
Michael Moynihan — Ms Casey’s local TD — told this newspaper that schools will be compelled to open special classes this year: “We need to make sure that there is no culture, or there’s no attitude, or there is no reluctance to embrace the opening of special classes.

“If there is, we need to break them down.”

Mr Moynihan is not long in office as minister but platitudes and promises are simply not good enough for families desperate to see their children cared for.

A system which requires a mother to move 100 miles to get her child a school place is not fit for purpose.

Light rail not so lightning fast to build

Positive signs for infrastructure in the deep south this week, with transport minister Darragh O’Brien talking up a light rail system for Cork.

“It’s really important for Cork from Ballincollig in the west right the way through to Mahon, and Cork light rail is a significant investment, but it’s going to be worth it,” said Mr O’Brien.

Current estimates for the system range between €2bn and €3bn, so significant is not an overstatement. The minister’s phrasing seems less than wholehearted — is that ‘but’ a little apologetic? — though that is hardly the primary concern.

First, construction costs have already risen sharply. As recently as May 2022, this newspaper carried stories about what was then a “proposed €1bn Cork light rail system”. While everyone is aware that construction costs have soared in recent years, the slow rate of progress with this particular project may have resulted in the price tag increasing threefold.

Furthermore, the track record of State institutions delivering large scale capital projects in Cork is terrible. Readers need only consider the lack of progress on the Event Centre — which convention now dictates must be described as a ‘long-running saga’ — as an example which raises serious concerns about the prospects of light rail on Leeside.

On paper, this proposal has the potential to make a fundamental improvement in the lives of thousands of people who are enduring a shambolic public transport system and a traffic network which grinds into gridlock on a regular basis.

However, the minister himself sounded a note of caution on the upcoming public consultation process and submission to An Bord Pleanála: “If everything was going according to plan you’re looking at months, to be honest with you.”

Put bluntly, how confident can we be that this rail system will be built?

The golden arm

The name James Harrison may not mean anything to readers, which is no surprise. The retired railway clerk passed away last year at the age of 88 in New South Wales, Australia, where he spent his life. His relatives said he was a humble man who had never sought attention.

Despite his low profile, over the course of his life, James Harrison saved over 2m babies.

He was not just a regular blood donor — his plasma contained a rare antibody, anti-D, and that antibody is used to protect unborn babies from haemolytic disease of the newborn, in which a pregnant woman’s immune system attacks her foetus’ red blood cells.

As a result, Mr Harrison’s 1,173 donations — from the time he turned 18 in 1954 until he retired in 2018 — saved the lives of 2.4m babies, according to Lifeblood, the Australian national agency responsible for collecting and distributing blood products. The Australian Red Cross Blood Service said Mr Harrison was known as the “man with the golden arm”.

The head of Lifeblood described him as “a remarkable, stoically kind, and generous person who was committed to a lifetime of giving and he captured the hearts of many people around the world. It was James’s belief that his donations were no more important than any other donors’ and that everyone can be special in the same way that he was.”

Mr Harrison’s commitment saw him appear in the Guinness Book of World Records at one time for donating more plasma than anyone else in the world. What makes his achievement all the more notable was an innate aversion to needles, which he overcame to help others. A true hero.

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