“WITNESSING YOUR CHILD being failed is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” Sarah Hennessy told the large group of parents, children and supporters gathered outside the Department of Education in Dublin this afternoon. 

Today, parents from across the country are beginning a 24-hour sleepout outside the Department in demand of more special education school places for their children.

At 1 pm they marched from under Clerys clock on Dublin’s O’Connell Street to the Department on Marlborough Street.

Carrying placards with pictures of their children, they chanted: “What do we want? School places. When do we want them? Now.”

Today's protest Alamy Alamy

Many parents were visibly emotional as they stood listening to speeches. 

Sarah Hennessy was there to advocate for her autistic son Freddie. Addressing those gathered, she said her experience as a mother has been “heartbreaking”.

“Heartbreaking because I have known nothing else but to fight constantly and advocate for my son, only to be left years on waiting lists and offered no services,” she said. 

“It is a lonely and isolating place that is often met with judgement and you are often ignored,” she said. 

“Autism isn’t something that goes away or something that you grow out of, it will always be here. Why do we as parents constantly have to fight for our children’s basic rights?

“We are exhausted.

“They say it takes a village, but any parent with a special needs child will tell you that that village does not exist. The lack of supports and services for our children is something Ireland should be ashamed of.”

Other speakers at the protest were Michelle Raftery and her 19-year-old daughter Kate. 

Kate is autistic and spoke about the difficulties she had in mainstream school when no special education places were available. 

“Before I got my diagnosis, I never understood why I struggled so much at school,” she said. 

“How do you expect anything to go in when you are teaching me, when I have everything else going on in my brain? When I have a hundred other things I am focusing on? The only thing I am thinking in your lesson is ‘help’,” Kate said. 

Kate’s school-related anxiety was so bad she would vomit every day and eventually ended up with significant absences.

“I was the parent sitting outside crying my eyes out because my child was so unhappy and so scared to go into school,” Kate’s mother Michelle said.

“Raising a child with additional needs is hard, but it’s not because of the child. It’s because of the lack of services, the lack of support.

“It’s because of the exclusion our children face. It’s because these parents have to fight for absolutely everything for our amazing children, and it’s not fair,” she said.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett also spoke at the event, telling those participating in the sleepout that it was “shameful” that they have been put in this position. 

TD Richard Boyd Barrett at today's protest Alamy Alamy

“Shame on this Government. In one of the richest countries in the world, a country that has record budget surpluses, they have more money than they know what to do it, and yet they can’t look after the basic rights of children to an education,” he said.

The next scandal

“Education is not a privilege. It’s your right,” Charlotte Cahill said as she read from a letter she wrote for her five-year-old daughter Cyra.

Cyra is autistic and is currently in her third year of preschool because of a school place not being available for the last two years.

Cahill, who is one of the organisers of the sleepout, had a message for the Government: “To our leaders, let me be clear, we do not want to hear another state apology years from now for the neglect of our children.

“Why is Ireland standing still?

“Why are they watching as our children are failed?

“We do not want our children to become the next scandal, the next shameful chapter in Irish history of institutional failures.”

In a statement, this afternoon Minister for Education Helen McEntee said she is doing “everything possible” to make sure there are enough places.

She said she has met twice with the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) since being appointed Minister for Education and that she has been briefed on their ongoing engagement with parents involved in the demonstration.

“I am also open to meeting with the parents to hear their concerns,” she said. 

The minister noted that 218 new special classes were sanctioned by the NCSE across the country this week and said more will follow imminently.