No automatic right to have child assessed under disabilities Bill

Oireachtas committee: Parents will not have an automatic right to have their children assessed for an educational disability under the Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill, currently before the Dáil.

Children could be refused an assessment of their educational needs and denied a special education plan even if parents feel the child has a disability, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

The Fine Gael spokesman on disabilities, Mr David Stanton, told the committee on the Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill he was concerned the legislation was not "rights-based" if parents could be denied assessment for their children.

While "frivolous and vexatious" requests had to be guarded against, he did not think parents would want to put children through assessment without reasonable cause.

"We are talking here about rights-based legislation, but putting in a provision for an assessment request to be dismissed ... is not rights-based."

Labour Party education spokeswoman Ms Jan O'Sullivan said while there should be some limitation on the number of assessments a parent can request, children should be allowed at least an initial assessment if a parent had identified a need.

The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said the legislation was rights-based, but no right was "totally unfettered".

"We can't give the right to look for a review every day of the week."

He said every parent would have the right to seek an assessment from the National Council for Special Education or, if the child was not yet of school-going age, the local health board.

If turned down, parents could go to an independent appeals board and ultimately had recourse to the courts.

Independent TD Mr Finian McGrath said disabilities groups and parents of disabled children were "sick and tired" of having to go to court to get their rights.

Mr Dempsey said he hoped it wouldn't come to that. There would be guidelines to ensure proper procedures were followed in determining whether an assessment was necessary.