Dublin parents to hold 24-hour sleep-out over ‘cruel’ lack of special placements

AROUND 50 PARENTS from Dublin are to hold a 24-hour sleep-out at the Department of Education over difficulty accessing special education school places.

The demonstration is set to start from 1pm on Friday at the department on Marlborough Street in the city.

Organisers said the protest is being held by the parents of children without suitable special education placements after repeated pleas for action had “gone unanswered”.

The protest aims to highlight the lack of special education places, an issue that featured on canvasses during the general election and that has been the subject of protests by parents previously.

In August, a group of parents, children and special needs assistants (SNAs) marched from Cleary’s Clock on O’Connell Street to the Department of Education to demand action.

They outlined their stress and worry for how a lack of a routine or education would affect their child’s development.

Charlotte Cahill, whose five-year-old daughter Cyra is autistic, said she believes the lack of school placements for children with additional needs is getting worse.

Cyra is in her third year of preschool because of a school place not being available for the last two years.

“Some of the schools I applied to last year, I was second or third on the list, where now it’s 16 or 22,” Ms Cahill told the PA news agency.

“She’s in her third year in preschool with an autism specialist. Normally you’re two years of that at a very maximum, we had to fight last year to get an extension on that, because we were in a position where we couldn’t secure a school place. We’re now at a point where we won’t be able to do an extension.

“By June, if we don’t have a school place, I genuinely don’t know where we’re going to be or what we’re going to do.”

She has set up a WhatsApp group for parents in Dublin who cannot secure a school place for children with special needs and there are 57 members in the group.

“At this point it’s really causing massive issues for my mental health, it’s causing me anxiety every single day. Every morning I wake up hoping that something comes in the post to say ‘here we are, it’s a school place’.

“I don’t want any more than what every other child gets, I just want the same opportunity, I just want access to education and an appropriate education.

“She struggles so much with a lack of routine, she’s now on a mid-term break for the last week and it’s been so hard because every single day she comes down, takes her backpack and she’s trying to go out the door because she wants to go to school. She just thrives on that structured routine.”

She said that parents have been given “broken promises” on securing placements in time, which she described as “just heartbreaking” and “so frustrating”.

She said that TDs who had been in touch with her during the election campaign on this issue have “done nothing” since then, with the exception of People Before Profit and Dublin South-West TD Paul Murphy.

“We have one child that’s going four years, this child has never been to school, he’s eight years of age and has never been to school, it’s cruel. It’s cruel.”

“We have to put our children’s most vulnerable issues and most vulnerable situations out in the world just for them to listen. It’s a fight from the day that they’re born for them to just exist in this world, and then they have to fight every single step of the way for access to everything, access to school, access to medical.”

She said her daughter is going to the Regional Midlands private hospital in March for surgery that she could get in Tallaght hospital because of 18-month waiting lists.

She added: “It’s not my child’s disability that’s causing this stress, it’s nothing to do with her disability that’s causing this stress, it’s the way that the system is set to break every single parent. That’s how I feel about it.

“They designed the system so that a door closes at every opportunity.”

Of Friday’s protest, she said: “I just hope that they listen to us and they actually act on what they’re saying they’re going to do. They say the same thing every single time, but we want to see the actions.

“Not in five years when it’s too late for our kids, in actual fact it’s probably already too late for our kids at this stage. I just want them to act and stop talking, stop putting their heads in the clouds and pretending that this isn’t happening when clearly it is.”

The Department of Education has been contacted for comment.