FF Hypocrisy on Children's Rights Exposed

national | health / disability issues | news report Monday December 11, 2006 14:20 by Miriam Cotton

O'Cuanachain Judgment may be handed down on Wednesday

There is a strong possibility that the judgment will be handed down in the High Court on Wednesday, December 13, 2006.

This case is of huge significance to all people with a disability, their family and friends and the professionals who serve them. Such is the importance of this case that our government spared no expense to fight Sean O'Cuanachain who has autism and his parents. The State employed two full legal teams, one for the Minister of Education, Mary Hanafin and the Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney and one for the HSE to win the right to deny Sean the education that was clearly benefiting him. The case was heard for an unprecedented 68 days from January to July 2006 at the expense of many million euros.

The critical point the State hopes to establish is that the entitlement of a person with disabilities to services like education is not based on need but is an entitlement based on what the State is prepared to supply and pay for.

This is the very point on which the State has based its two recent regressive unconstitutional pieces of disability legislation: the Education for Persons with Special Needs Act and the Disability Act. I think you can understand the ramifications of having our Constitutional right to services based on need established in the O’Donoghue and Sinnott Judgments, overturned.

The stakes are high. We need an enormous crowd to be on the steps of the court to cheer if all goes well, to shout if not, to show the nation the lengths our government is prepared to go to discriminate against persons with disability and to demand that the State accept its responsibility to children and adults with disabilities.