Ms Carmel Ryan:

It has been a learning experience, as they say. Fiacre has just started a history and geography course in Atlantic Technological University, ATU, in Mayo. He is the only non-verbal person on the course, so that is a challenge to start with. The biggest challenge for Fiacre was actually getting into the university in the first place because he did not have sufficient points for many of the courses that he wanted to do. We discovered that if you get into a university course, then you get the supports. However, in our case, the disability officer in one of the universities would not even answer our emails because as far as that office was concerned, it would only take on his case when he was actually in the college. The biggest obstacle, therefore, was getting into the college in the first place but the disability officer would say "That has nothing to do with me”. To be honest, I cannot understand that.

We did get another disability officer in ATU Mayo who took on his case. Fiacre got in as a special admissions case but as a 21-year-old who has done the leaving certificate, who has done courses and who has prior learning experience, he should not have to beg for a place in college. He has proven himself. He has done his assignments. He is well able for the lectures and he is well able to keep up with the course. However, he will get caught out when it comes to exams because he is a slow writer and typist and he needs extensions to do his assignments. He will struggle with the practical aspects of the course and that is something that we will have to work out as we go along. We have got this far so we will stick with it. Hopefully, we will get the supports we need.