NCAD could not ‘wipe slate clean' after student with Down syndrome failed exam, WRC hears
The
Workplace Relations Commission
(WRC) has heard a
third-level
institution made 'every effort' to support a young artist with Down syndrome pursuing a degree – but that it could not 'wipe the slate clean' after she failed a crucial first-year module.
The director of the
National College of Art and Design
(NCAD) gave evidence on Thursday that in the wake of a 'heated' meeting with the student's parents, the woman's mother, a journalist, told her 'they would make sure that my reputation was damaged'.
Ellie Dunne (25) – who is said by her legal team to be the first student with Down syndrome to enrol on a degree programme at NCAD on Thomas Street in Dublin 8 – is pursuing a complaint under the Equal Status Act 2000 against the college.
Her case is the college failed to provide her with reasonable accommodation during her first semester after starting in September 2023 and that disability discrimination continued when the college required her to re-sit a failed first-year module. The college's lawyers have denied discrimination 'in the strongest possible terms'.
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At an earlier WRC hearing on Wednesday , the college's head of academic affairs, Dr Siún Hanrahan, said some 32 per cent of the college's approximately 1,400 students had self-declared additional needs of some description.
She said the college offers a range of supports to these students. Some were 'tailored' packages on foot of a needs assessment while 'less tailored' support was available more broadly to those who had simply self-declared additional needs.
Dr Hanrahan said there was a 'significant difference' between the requirements of the level-five art course completed by Ms Dunne at Stillorgan College of Further Education and the level-eight bachelor's degree at NCAD.
Ms Dunne had access to assistive technology and an educational support worker who was available for two days a week, the tribunal heard. After Ms Dunne failed a module, the college made the support worker available for five days. .
The witness said Ms Dunne's parents, Katy McGuinness and Feidhlim Dunne, took it as 'a very offensive thing that Ms Dunne had not successfully achieved the learning outcomes of the module'.
Ellie Dunne, centre, with her parents Katy McGuinness and Felim Dunne at the WRC in Dublin. Photograph: Stephen Bourke
'[Their] view was that the slate should be wiped clean,' she said. 'Under the [academic] regulations, that's just not possible.' .
The tribunal heard the college proposed to allow Ms Dunne re-sit the assessment with access to workshops and without academic penalty, and to have it considered by an exam board the following autumn.
Barrister Rosemary Mallon, for the respondent, instructed by Paul McDonald of AJP McDonald Solicitors, pointed out she asked Ms Dunne in cross-examination last year whether she 'knew about that offer'.
Ms Mallon said Ms Dunne had indicated she did not know about it and would have liked to have availed of it.
'If Ellie didn't know, it was because she was not told by her parents?' Ms Mallon asked Dr Hanrahan.
'Yes,' Dr Hanrahan said.
At a January 2024
meeting 'any suggestion of a repeat was met with a lot of opposition,' the college's director, Prof Sarah Glennie said, but mediation was agreed to by the family.
Prof Glennie said that during a phone call two days later Ms McGuinness said 'they would make sure that my reputation was damaged' and that 'they would bury me in the process'.
'That was directly said, that they would 'bury you' in the process?' adjudicator Breiffni O'Neill asked. Prof Glennie confirmed this.
In cross examination, counsel for the complainant Aisling Mulligan, appearing instructed by KOD Lyons, put it to the witness that Ms McGuinness had 'disputed' telling Prof Glennie she 'would be buried'.
Prof Glennie said: 'That is my recollection.'
When the disputed remark was first raised last year by Ms Mallon, Ms McGuinness said it was 'a phrase not familiar to me'.
The case has been adjourned to October.
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