School principals need to be trained as lawyers to deal with the legal minefield created by the new Education Act and equality legislation, according to the outgoing president of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, Mr Michael McCann.
The Equality Act is "almost political correctness gone too far" because it is forcing schools to take students that it does not have the resources, accommodation or training to deal with. This was threatening the quality of education of the majority, Mr McCann told The Irish Times, following the annual NAPD conference in Galway.
Section 29 of the Education Act, meanwhile, was overturning schools' decisions to expel, suspend or refuse admission to students in 50 per cent of cases, he said.
There was a genuine concern amongst principals that they were now spending so much time dealing with legal issues, that they were being distracted from educational leadership.
The incoming president of the NAPD, Mr Derek West, said "the system is using legislation to blackmail us into taking students without giving us the accommodation that such students and their teachers need".
Many schools, including his own, had been forced to take students with special needs, though the schools lacked accommodation. It was not enough to be given resource hours, if there were not enough rooms in which to teach.
"The rights of the individual are being exercised at the expense of the majority," said Mr Brian Cannon, principal of Malahide Community School. The legal structure has become "far too PC".
There was mounting anger at the conference that secondary schools could be forced under the Education Act, equality legislation and the upcoming Disabilities Bill to take students they could not properly accommodate without increased funding. This was consequently taking away from resources available to the majority of students, and thereby threatening their rights to an education, principals claimed.
Under the Education Act, Section 29, schools are having their right to refuse enrolment, to suspend or to expel students overturned by a three-member appeals board run by the Department of Education. At the same time, the Department is not giving schools the support they need to deal with these students, the conference was told.
Tullow Community School was forced under a Section 29 appeal to grant a place on its Leaving Cert Applied programme to a student from outside its catchment area, thus displacing students already enrolled in the school who were on a waiting list.
The student, who was in care and had severe learning disabilities, took an appeal under section 29 after the school refused admittance to the Leaving Cert Applied programme on the grounds that it had already filled all 16 of its previously declared places.
The Department of Education appeals board insisted the student become number 17 on the programme, while three other students already enrolled in the school were left out of it.
The appeal was upheld on the grounds that while the school had an admissions policy limiting numbers doing Leaving Cert Applied to 16, the board of management had not yet formally approved the policy.
Schools cannot appeal the board's decisions unless they get money from the Department to pay for lawyers.
This would mean that the Department was effectively paying lawyers to undermine its own position.
At the same time, the Department has taken two legal cases against schools in the past year.