The State's reversal of its plans to seek legal costs from Mr Richard Clare and his mother followed an intervention last week by the newly appointed Minister for Education, Ms Hanafin, it has emerged.
Ms Hanafin sought advice from the Attorney General on the matter in recent days and instructed solicitors not to seek costs, which were expected to be in the region of €1 million.
The Minister said yesterday she was concerned that such legal cases were diverting money from the provision of services for children with special education needs. She said that in changing the Department's plans to seek legal costs, she also had regard to the prospect of actually recovering the costs, as well as the establishment of new appeal procedures likely to result in fewer cases coming before the courts.
Ms Hanafin said that while she did not want to penalise the parents by seeking costs, she felt it was "important to highlight to solicitors that unjustified claims are an abuse of the legal process and will be at their own expense and not that of the State".
However, Ms Anne Clare rejected the Minister's assertion that taking the case was an abuse of the legal process. "If that were so, then the Minister has, by that logic, abused the process on many, many occasions, as the State has, I understand, lost all of such cases except this one," Ms Clare said.
"My son suffers from ADHD. He was expelled from school. He had no school to go to. The Department did nothing. Lawyers did. They got Richard a place in a school. I am, and will be, eternally grateful."
She said she believed that pressure from cases such as hers had resulted in increased funding for special education.
