Local TD Denis Naughten has called for the Government to immediately address a situation where 11 local children are set to leave primary school in the next two weeks without knowing where they will be going to secondary school in September.
Deputy Naughten said that Minister Josepha Madigan assured him four weeks ago that these local children would have access to an autism-specific class.
But he said that their parents have yet to receive any details of where they will be going to school.
“Where parents have been told that the school place is up to 100km away, they have been provided with no details of how their child is to get to school and who is going to pay the astronomical fuel bill these families are now facing,” explained the Roscommon-Galway TD.
“The lack of secondary school places for children with autism in Athlone and South Roscommon will force 11 students to travel up to 150,000 km over the next school year because of the failure to provide autism classes in schools any nearer than Glenamaddy in County Galway.”
Speaking in the Dáil, Deputy Naughten said that these children should be entitled to an education in their own town along with their schoolmates and their brothers and sisters.
“I don’t think it is too much to ask,” he said.
