The O’Cuanachain case is of huge significance to all people with any disability not just those with autism spectrum disorders. At the previous hearing the parents were informed that they had lost the part of the case dealing with future provision.

The implications of the Justice Peart’s conclusions delivered on the 23rd March 2007 are becoming clear. It will result in a major erosion of the rights of the child with special needs to access appropriate education services and will enable the Government policy to distribute resources as it chooses without reference to professional recommendations made in respect of individual children.

The Department of Education and Sciences legal team argued that an appropriate education for a child with special needs is a teacher and the national curriculum. No extra training for the teachers is necessary. No right to special needs assistants (SNAs) exists. No right to any additional resources exists.
The Department of Education want to establish a precedent where they are not legally obliged to provide any extra resources to any child with special education need, regardless of whether the child has been assessed as needing them or not. Seán Ó Cuanacháin has been assessed as needing ABA but the court did not find that he should therefore have that need met. For a child with Dyslexia, for example, there will not now be a right to resource teaching hours. For a child with a physical disability there will not now be a right to a special needs assistant. The Department of Education wants a scenario where they can distribute resources as they see fit, with no form of appeal. It is now clear why this Government refused to include disability rights in the Disability Act and the Education of Persons with Special Education Needs Act. A joint group of disability advocacy groups called 'Rights Make the Difference' rightly predicted that these Acts would make things worse rather than better for children and adults with special needs. The result has been the longest running education case in the history of the state where the Department of Education refused to provide an appropriate education for a child with disability. The Health Service Executive argued that legislation does not state that the HSE are obliged to provide health therapies to children with special needs. So, if you are the parent of a child waiting for speech therapy, now you know why, the HSE don't think they are obliged to provide it. The National Council for Special Education tells us that 20% of children of school going age have a special education need and the outcome of this case will have a direct impact on every single one of those children. Parents may lose the right to choose where and how they want their child to be educated, and yet the State will be legally freed from any obligation to provide any more than a chair and desk in a classroom with 30 other kids and one poor beleaguered teacher.

Following the judgement it is highly likely Department of Education and Science will offer alternate places in mainstream schools offering the ‘eclectic’ model to children currently attending Barnacoyle and other ABA centres. Once this is offered to each child funding to the ABA schools will stop. Without the funding provided by Department of Education, Barnacoyle and other ABA centres are doomed.

It is expected the Department of Education will begin this action sooner rather than later (possibly in next couple of weeks). The Department is already making provisions in local national schools through the use of an incentive scheme for schools who agree to expand there autism outreach classes. The Department are not considering the needs of the child or the recommendations for the child’s education that parents have received from professionals in the field of autism spectrum disorders. This policy is sinister and causing unbearable stress for parents who genuinely fear for the children’s future development and quality of life.