Sir, – On July 30th, The Irish Timescarried a prominent article on the closure of the ABA Achieve school in Donaghmede in Dublin. It was illustrated by a large picture of a crying mother leading her child out of the school by the hand.
This was, we were told, “the last” of the ABA schools for children with autism to close, the other 12 all having already closed.
This is completely untrue. Twelve ABA schools are not only open, but fully State funded. The Green Party negotiated permanent State funding for these schools during its period in government.
The changeover from voluntary status to State funding has, of course, been difficult for these schools, but overall they are a great success story.
The chairman of Irish Autism Action, Brian Murnane, whose child is at the Abacus ABA school in Kilbarrack, says the combination of the State system and the ABA method is bringing education to a new level and the Kilbarrack school has just been asked to expand. I had just visited this school with my autistic son when I read the article in The Irish Timessaying all such schools had closed.
The confusion, and the closure of ABA Achieve in Donaghmede, originates in a dispute among a small community of parents as to whether State requirements – such as that the school should have a State-qualified principal and teachers – are appropriate to these schools.
Some take the view that State involvement is interference. Personally, I believe that the State cannot pour such huge resources into the schools – up to €40,000 per child per year – if they do not meet many State governance requirements.
The subtleties of the argument have been completely overlooked by the media.
So too has the fact that for most of the children served by ABA schools, this story is one of success against all the odds.
Courageous parents have persevered and the State has, finally, come in behind them to provide superb education for children who need it badly. We can all be proud that, even in our difficulties, we have not abandoned these children, who are among the most vulnerable in our society.
However, despite the correction which The Irish Timespublished a couple of days later, everyone likes the story of the poor children let down by the politicians. It was reported by many of the print and broadcast media, and has been repeated in them since.
In his major article The Life of the Irish Child in this newspaper on August 20th, Fintan O’Toole repeats the story that “schools for autistic children have closed” as one of the results of austerity required by servicing our national debt.
So how do we rewrite the script if the schools for autistic children are not only open, but now, for the first time, fully funded by the State? For me, the strongest argument against wild calls for “default” or exit from the euro, which a Swiss bank last week calculated would cost each Irish household up to €44,000, has always been the welfare of the weakest amongst us.
It is vital that the media stick to the truth when reporting on disabled children, so that we can make choices which protect them, rather than use them as handy props in political demonstrations.– Yours, etc,