A LIMERICK school dealing with some of the worst deprivation in the city and has a staggering number of children with extra needs has been refused help yet again.
Seven in 10 pupils of Le Cheile National School have additional needs in one area. Almost one in four have additional needs in two or more areas and are in need of extra supports.
After €6million was pumped into a new campus for Le Chéile National School in Rathbane, parents and teachers were promised a wrap-around support service with child mental health and diagnostics, medical clinics with a dedicated nurse and doctor, and play therapy and family supports, hand-in-hand with classroom supports including special needs teachers, all on site in a one stop shop.
In an interview in March of this year with the Limerick Post, vice principal Shane Donoghue said the school building was opened in a blaze of publicity nine years ago “and then everyone just walked away”.
“The promises never materialised. The school was promised the kind of services that sounded like the stuff of fantasy. These services are needed in the second most deprived area in the country – not in Limerick, not in the region – the second most deprived in the entire State.”
Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan raised the issue of the school getting none of the supports in needs in the Dáil recently, saying that the school’s “fantastic staff have been pleading for over two years with various departments for additional resources to support these children but at every turn the door has been closed”.
“This is a school with significant disability and additional needs but it cannot get the genuine supports it needs. The response I got from the Minister two weeks ago referred me back to the HSE. The school has written confirmation from the HSE that it will not fund any of the places or supports it needs. It has been pushed from
the Department of Education to the HSE to the Minister’s Department.”
Deputy Quinlivan confirmed to the Limerick Post this week that there still “has been no progress at all. I’ve visited the school and it is unbelievable what is happening.”
“The staff are trying to provide teaching and services for children who are in some of the most difficult circumstances you could imagine but they have been turned down at every time.
