Child with additional needs loses legal challenge over year-long delay getting school transport
Dublin
has lost a
High Court
challenge over delays of up to a year in providing him with a transport service to school.
While the delays were frustrating for the boy and his family, there was nothing to suggest any conscious or deliberate flouting of rights, Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger said.
A 'proactive and reactive' approach was adopted by the Minister for Education, despite practical challenges posed by unsuccessful transport escort recruitment processes and delays due to legal obligations including procurement rules and Garda vetting requirements.
The delay was due to 'genuine difficulties' that the relevant personnel are actively seeking to address and suitable alternative supports – a school transport grant and home tuition grant – were offered as a temporary measure.
READ MORE
While refusing to declare the Minister had not complied with her statutory obligation to provide a school transport service for a child with
disabilities
or other special educational needs, the judge said the delay in securing services cannot be 'unlimited'.
If a transport service is not in place by September, as expected, the child can reapply to the court, she said.
In her judgment published on Monday, the judge noted school transport is administered by a
Department of Education
non-statutory scheme.
The child lives with his family in Dublin and had difficulties with previous school placements. After his parents accepted a July 2024 offer of a place, they sent a completed school transport application form on July 13th, 2024 to a special education needs officer but it was not provided to the relevant section of the Department of Education until September 4th. The form referred to the child's anxiety causing 'meltdowns and outbursts when triggered' and said an escort would be required to prevent danger to the driver.
On September 25th, Bus Éireann advised the department a driver service was required, which the department sanctioned a week later.
A procurement process, required under European law, involved the route being put to tender five times before a successful bidder was appointed on March 3rd.
The child's mother was sanctioned for a home tuition grant that was ultimately not availed of as she said sourcing a suitable tutor would take considerable time. She was paying for private dyslexia reading lessons since the previous October.
On March 3rd, a transport service was put in place and the school was responsible for employing the escort. One was hired on April 2nd and, after Garda vetting, began employment on May 6th.
The transport service involved the boy and two other children with additional needs being transported by a driver and accompanied by the escort in a saloon car.
On May 12th, the school principal informed the department the other two children had become dysregulated during the journey, partly due to limited space in the car, and expressed concern the school would lose the escort. She said the boy could not attend school until a new escort was recruited.
The escort resigned two days later, the judge noted. The department then sanctioned an individualised transport service for the boy, available from May 25th, subject to getting an escort.
That proved difficult, and a temporary arrangement was made to have a post-primary escort who, after Garda vetting, was available for two weeks in July.
The department's reasonable expectation was that an escort would be in place for the new school year commencing in September, the judge said.
As there is no 'firm arrangement' in place, the issues raised in the proceedings are not moot or pointless, and the application can be renewed if the service is not available, she said.
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That sun would take it out of you all the same. There's something wrong with this brandy, says Gertie, who's just taken her first sip. It's soft. First the cone, now the brandy, you're in awful fettle, says Rose, sniffing her drink and letting a smidgen pass her lips. It tastes fine to me. I bet there's water in it. Doubles, my eye. Rose takes a more measured drink and says, It tastes all right to me. I'll swap with you if you want? Blather, says Gertie, rising. Where are you going? I'm going off for a swim in the bay. What? I'm going to the bloody toilet, Rose. Do you want a hand? I'm grand. You're gone as bad as the young nurse inside in St Teresa's. Fussing. Always fussing. Gertie makes her way towards the bathroom. Is it any wonder she is as irritable as she is, as forgetful as she is, when she's trapped inside in that home? Rose decides she'll bring Gertie away from St Teresa's more often. The better part of the summer is still ahead. She can socialise Gertie back to wellness. 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She felt bad about this at times, but he'd moved to Manchester at 18 for college and stayed there afterwards, working as a civil engineer, marrying a girl from Stockport and settling down five doors further along the same terraced street as her parents. He went very English altogether, even developed a twirl to his accent. The craythur, Rose thinks now, did I give him enough attention at all? She takes out her phone and sends him a picture of her brandy on WhatsApp and says: On a lovely afternoon trip to Lahinch with Gertie. Saw a rescue in the water! V sunny day. All well here. Hope all well there. Love to Becky and the kids x She puts her phone away, takes a mouthful of brandy. Then she eyes Gertie's glass, sniffs it and takes a sip. Sure enough, it tastes a little weaker than her own. She leaves it down on the table again. Gertie comes back from the bathroom and sits down. They drink the rest of their brandies in silence, intermittently nodding and smiling at the young waitress. I think it's time to hit the road, says Rose, when they finish their cognacs. High time, says Gertie. At the bus stop, a long-bearded man wearing a tie-dyed bandanna is tracking the bus's journey. He tells them it's delayed somewhere up near Doolin and won't arrive for another 25 minutes. Rose has always been proud of her ability to remain continent into her late 70s, but now she feels an almighty urge to go to the toilet and is relieved at the bus's delay. Gertie says just in case that bad brandy has any ill-effect she should go with her too, so they walk through the car park to the public toilets. After they go to the bathroom they have time, Rose says, for one last jaunt on the prom. She wants to catch a final sight of the water, another whiff of the briny air. They stand near the top of the slipway where the incoming tide is sweeping on to the breakwater rocks with timid gushes. She looks around at the throngs of people, their arms and legs and faces pinked by the sun. The bustle of the place, the sight of the water, the blasting heat of the sun: it is all so invigorating. She takes a deep breath and tells Gertie they'll come out here again soon. The next fine day. The bus'll be gone, says Gertie. And they do need to make a move on. But as Rose turns to follow Gertie back towards the bus stop she feels her left big toe stub something and her stomach flutters because she is momentarily, sickeningly weightless, and she realises she's falling towards the paved ground, her body twisting in mid-air as she clutches at nothing, and she hits the footpath's kerb on its angle. She hears the crack and splinter of bone before she feels a staggering pain in her right hip. A crowd gathers around her. She looks up and thinks she sees some of the same people who were cheering the rescue earlier, but she's in such agony that she could, perhaps, be seeing things. After a minute she can't really see anything because she closes her eyes against the bald sun's glare and when she opens them again everything is green and blurry. From somewhere, someone says, God, the poor thing, I saw it, she took an awful land. Another voice says he's just called the ambulance and it'll be out in no time. And then she hears Gertie's voice, answering a question. Ennis, she says. We took the bus out this morning. Rose McCormack is her name. She'd be 78, the very same as myself, didn't we grow up together? The poor craythur, she'll be in with me now after this anyway. She'll be down the hall from me. A gentle spray blows in with a breaking wave. Droplets fall on Rose's face like drizzle. She tastes the saltiness of the ocean on her dry lips. She can no longer hear voices. Instead she hears something strange coming from beyond the land. She almost smiles when she recognises the melody. It's a tune Frank used to whistle to himself when he'd spend an age shaving in front of the mirror, the door wide open, the notes carrying through the house. She hasn't heard this tune in years, decades. But soon the notes jumble up and the sound rings horribly in her head, like tinnitus. She feels the scratch of the hard concrete against her cheek, and she pleads with Frank, wherever he might be, whether he is somewhere out there or nowhere at all, to take her now. Mattie Brennan was the winner of the 2024 RTÉ Short Story Competition Mattie Brennan's short stories have featured in The Stinging Fly, Southword and The Menteur. He was the winner of the 2024 RTÉ Short Story Competition. Originally from Co Sligo, he now lives in Co Clare
