A SECONDARY school which refused to enrol a 14-year-old boy with autism has settled its High Court action over a decision requiring it to enrol the boy.
Coláiste Chiarán Community School in Leixlip, Kildare, had brought the action claiming a decision by a Department of Education-appointed appeals committee requiring it to admit him, after the school refused, failed to observe its enrolment policy.
Following agreement yesterday between the school and the department, Mr Justice Kevin Feeney quashed the appeals committee decision directing the school to enrol the boy on grounds that the decision was made on “legally irrelevant” considerations.
The comittee had ruled the boy should be enrolled because the school was chosen by his parents and had capacity in a special unit for autism.
The judge recommended a new committee which will hear the matter should address the boy’s suitability with regard to the school’s admission policy.
The school board of management had challenged the appeals committee decision, made under Section 29 of the 1998 Education Act, as irrational and failing to take into account relevant material including that the school was unsuitable and could not cater for his needs.
It was claimed the committee did not take into account the school had adopted its enrolment policy based on a “complex matrix of considerations.”
The case opened on Tuesday before Mr Justice Feeney and resumed yesterday when the judge asked the parties to consider discussing the matter because his current line of thinking was to quash the committee’s decision and have it reconsider the matter.
The case was adjourned and, following discussions, lawyers for both sides said they were agreeable to the judge’s suggestion.
The judge then quashed the committee decision on grounds one or both of the reasons given for that decision amounted, on the facts then before it, to “legally irrelevant considerations.”
He also directed the Department of Education to pay the costs, of one day of the two-day hearing, incurred by the school and the boy’s mother.
The court heard the boy applied to be enrolled in September last and was turned down by the school in October.
The school argued, since it had established an “Autistic Spectrum Disorder Unit” in 2007, its policy was not to enrol a child with significant intellectual impairment.
The Department of Education argued it was apparent to the committee the school never assessed or interviewed the boy.
It also submitted the school could not determine the meaning of “significant intellectual impairment” in relation to him in an objective or fair manner.
