THE PARENTS of a 15-year-old girl have been each sentenced to 21 days in jail for failing to send her to school.
However, the judge at Tullamore District Court suspended the sentence on condition that the parents did not appear before him again.
The girl attended for only 15 days in the last two years, the court was told.
In spite of a number of warnings from the court and the intervention of social workers, the girl’s parents claimed that they have been unable to get her to go to school.
The court heard that the father claimed he tried everything to get the girl to go to school.
“You can’t pull a child down the street and throw her into school,” he said.
“All I can do is talk to the child and advise her that she has to be in school.”
Solicitor for the parents Donal Farrelly said the parents were in physical ill-health and there were other difficulties outlined in a report given to the judge.
“Short of physical violence, he wasn’t sure what other effort he could make,” said Mr Farrelly,
Judge Gerard Haughton said he did not accept that the couple were as concerned for their daughter’s education as they claimed to be.
“If they were so concerned, they would have attended a meeting at the school earlier this month without their daughter when she refused to go and they would have been ‘tearing their hair out’ and asking for help.”
The couple and their daughter failed to attend the meeting and made no contact with the school or the National Educational Welfare Board until the inspector called to their home and arranged a further meeting for the following day.
At that meeting, on January 11th, it was agreed that a reduced timetable and extra support would be put in place for the girl and everything would be done to facilitate her needs, the court heard.
It was agreed that the girl would go to school on January 13th but she failed to turn up.
“I would love her to go back to school,” the father said.
“I’ve done everything in my power to get that child to go to school.”