Kildare families form new special needs awareness group

A KILDARE group set up only two months ago by just two concerned parents to lobby for additional Special Educational Needs (SEN) classrooms in north Kildare has “exploded” after taking their protests to Dail Eireann last week.

“We are parents and guardians whose children have not received appropriate resources or SEN places in north Kildare,” said spokesperson Vivienne Sullivan.

“We are desperately trying to get as much visibility around this issue as possible,” she said.

Vivienne explained that in the North Kildare SEN Action Group “there are 50 parents looking for places for the school year 2026-27, and a further 15 so far looking for SEN place from September”.

“We have one parent who waited nine years! This is disgraceful, and is breaking the law,” she said.

“We have a mix of primary, secondary, special needs, and pre-school [pupils waiting],” she said.

“We will be having a community meeting in the coming weeks. We’re looking at 10 May, hopefully in the Westgrove [Clane] , and we expect the numbers to go up significantly after that, but we will let you know in time,” said Vivienne.

She started the Group with one other parent in February, and already there are almost 260 members on their Facebook page.

“Any time a special needs assessment is made by a school in Celbridge, Leixlip or Maynooth there just aren’t the spaces,” she said.

“I was speaking to the NCSE recently [the Government’s National Council for Special Education], and they said for just the three towns, they needed a minimum of two to three more ASD [autism spectrum disorder] classes,” said Vivienne.

“To put more perspective on those numbers, each of those classes should have between four to six spaces for SEN students,” she said.

“My son was told he need SEN in Leixlip, but the only have six spaces for the entire town, and those spaces are already taken,” she said.

“The chances of getting a space with already 19 or 20 people in front of him are very small,” she said.

“Meanwhile, he has to suffer in the mainstream, even after a specialist psychologist has said an ASD class is the best place for him,” she said.

“The principal is very helpful, and doing the best he can, but is just not given the resources,” she added.

“We not only feel that every child deserves a place in school, and the right to a basic education tailored to their specific needs, but we also feel that there are certain neurodiversities not recognised as disabilities restricting our children from the resources they need.

“We would like a full review on what qualifies as a disability.

“Currently, autism, Dyslexia (be mindful of how wide the range is) and an IQ above 69 do not qualify as disabilities.

“We have parents being rejected for school places and school resources on these bases.

“These are not appropriate measures to decide if a child has a disability as the ranges are extremely broad. “Additionally, in our group parents have been offered places in schools 45km away, without a bus service and expected to travel to and from schools daily at their own expense.

“Not only is this crazy and and unreasonable, but the child is taken from their community, their friends, to a place miles away from any parent support - what happens if the child gets sick or has an accident in school?

We have support from Cllr Angela Feeney [herself an educator] who has been instrumental with her support, joining marches and setting up media interviews, to build as much awareness as possible.

This week Deputy Reada Cronin TD reached out to support our group and to help drive this incentive forward, and we are very grateful for Réada's support,” she said.

“We didn’t think we’d grow like this, but I has exploded, and loads of people are out there looking for our help,” she concluded.