A seven-year-old autistic child who does not have a school place due to a teacher shortage is suffering negatively as a result, his mother has said.
Catherine Morgan said her son Sean, who is severely autistic, was regressing as a result in the delay in returning to the classroom. Sean also has ADHD, and mental health issues.
He was due to start at the Benincasa Special School in Blackrock, Co Dublin, two weeks ago.
However the school's principal, Diarmuid Delaney, told the family that as a result of a shortage of teachers, Sean could not take up his place.
He is one of four pupils who could not avail of their places at the school due to a teacher shortage, the principal confirmed.
Benincasa Special School has 43 pupils with special and developmental needs.
The school said they need eight teachers, but four resigned over the summer.
Despite repeated advertisements from early August on Education Posts, WhatsApp, Facebook and other platforms, the school has not been able to recruit any replacements, he said.
Sean, who turns eight next week, has severe social, behavioural and emotional difficulties.
His mother said these have deteriorated over the summer, while being away from the structure of an educational setting.
She told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that the family were "overjoyed" that Sean was due to start at a new school but they were devastated to be told by the school principal that Sean could not start at the school due to a lack of teachers.
She said that her son's failure to return to school was having "a horrible impact on the family" and on himself.
"Sean's anxiety has gone so bad. He barely leaves his room," she said.
"We just try to take breaks during the day to get him out.
"He's just regressing so much that the impact is having a ripple effect throughout the family.
"He's seeing his sisters go to school and he's wondering why am I not going like the way that they are.
"He has a four-year-old sister that started junior infants, a 12-year-old that's started secondary and he's just there watching, wondering what he has done wrong that he doesn't deserve to get to go to school like they do."
She said she was doubly frustrated by what seemed to her like an absence of an overall plan to bring more teachers into the system.
"The Government needs to put a plan in place that there are long term teachers," she said.
"Not substitute teachers that come in one day are gone the next.
"Any child on the spectrum, with all their needs, needs routine structure. Having a teacher one day and a different teacher the next, it doesn't work long term.
"The only thing he has, bar his family, is school. And every child is entitled to an education. I don't know why the system is failing them so much."
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