Mr. Fergal O'Malley:

First, I thank the committee for the invitation today. My wife, Rachel, and I are here to give a snapshot of our story and what we have been through over the last couple of years with regards the education of our son, Harry.

Harry is currently ten years old and is a beautiful, intelligent, loving, caring child. He is difficult at times but as parents, he is our Harry and he is a little legend. Harry has a diagnosis of autism. He also has a pathological demand avoidance, PDA, diagnosis and a recent ADHD diagnosis, for which he attends CAMHS.

Like everybody else here, I want to give a specific account of our journey as regards education. We have had same difficulties as everybody else here as regards getting supports, which we believe has led to this situation. Harry attended a local ASD unit in our hometown. It is a national school with three classes. Initially, Harry was offered a place due to his ASD diagnosis. Shortly after that, his place was withdrawn because the ASD diagnosis from the psychologist did not state that he needed a place in that school. I am originally from Mayo and we had travelled to Rachel's hometown. Because the psychologist's support did not mention specific schooling, his place was withdrawn, so we had to go back to Mayo to the psychologist to get that included in the report. Harry was re-offered the place again and we accepted it. We were delighted with it.

You could say that Harry is very high functioning. Many of his issues are behavioural.

He has a meltdown and just cannot cope or does not know what is happening. We looked for extra supports in the school and were told that they would not waste supports on him because he did not need them. They had other children who were more deserving of them. On another occasion we were at a school play for another of our children. We have four other children. I was asked to visit an office where it was suggested to me that, due to Harry's behavioural issues and meltdowns, there was a broom cupboard they could have padded out and they could lock him into it for his own safety. I declined that offer and walked out of the room. I was absolutely disgusted.

People ask me why did I not just take the child out of the school after that. It is not a case of that. He has nowhere else to go. He has four other siblings in the school. Shortly after that, Rachel, my wife, attended an individual education plan, IEP, meeting with the school. The teacher was there, and I have to say that, although he was not supported, he was brilliant. I cannot speak highly enough of the teachers Harry has had for the past few years. At the end of the meeting it was stated in a matter of fact way that Harry's class teacher and SNA were changing and he would also be moving to a different classroom. As anybody here can imagine, we felt and knew that was too much change for a child with autism. We highlighted our concerns. We were told that our concerns were noted but it was still going to happen. We contacted Middletown Centre for Autism. We spoke to the people there about whether this was best practice. They were horrified. We went back to the school with suggestions. We spoke to Middletown, whose staff provided us with what they called stepping stones to introduce change. We came to a decision with the school so that not everything would change, and it would be phased in over the year using the stepping stones plan. That was never implemented.

There were also issues where Harry had been able to leave school property and get out onto a busy main road. At this stage, communication and the relationship with the school had deteriorated to the point where I was offering to get someone to mediate between the two of us. This was the last thing I wanted. We are not parents who want to be fighting all the time. However, when a ten-year-old child is involved, you are not going to give up either.

This led to the night before Harry's school tour. We got a phone call at 10 p.m. to say that Harry had been suspended for the following day and would not be able to attend his school tour. I know I have limited time, but I also want to state that Rachel does not work. Harry was on a reduced school day. He was only going in for one or two hours. If anything happened in the morning, at the drop of a hat, Rachel would be called to collect Harry and bring him home. The psychologist had told the school that was not the answer either. However, it was still happening, and for Harry's sake we did not want him distressed. Rachel was always there, and it was never a case of him being at school so it was their problem and we were not dealing with it.

The suspension led to a further breakdown with the school. We felt that, even with all of the work being done and the sign-off of the principal and the teacher, the proper supports were not there. This led to Harry regressing a bit. He was not really learning anything. It led to a further suspension. The National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and NCSE have been involved. They were providing supports. However, the people were not there to implement them. Harry was suspended again. There was an issue before that when Rachel had been in the school and was secretly recorded on a personal phone. This video was shared within the school, but I am not going to mention who, where or why. These images were shared. The complaint to the board of management was totally ignored.

Shortly after, the principal changed. We spoke to the new principal and agreed to a fresh start with open communication. We were delighted. We were seeing a positive attitude and we felt that at this stage the school really wanted to work with us for Harry's education and to get him an education. Meltdown incidents had more than halved. The feeling of coming in from work in the evening and seeing Harry sitting at the kitchen table reading a book - now, it was a book for a junior infants child - but it was still an amazing moment. Harry made his first communion. Everybody was on tenterhooks, but everything was absolutely brilliant. There were tough days, which I admit. I am not going to say it was plain sailing; it was not. However, meltdown incidents had more than halved. We were happy and getting great feedback from the teacher and the school. The ethos of open communication was still there. We were delighted to come in and see our child reading. It made me so proud.

On 29 September, Rachel was called into the school. She brought Harry home. That evening we received an email saying Harry was suspended until further notice, and the school was going to the board of management to expel him. We were both devastated. The school would not reply to our emails. Nobody would get back to us. I did not want to do it, but I was so annoyed I put up a post on Facebook. Only following that did somebody from the school come back to us and say that the expulsion report was being prepared and we would receive a copy in the post when it was done. The Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, would have been proud of the expulsion report that was prepared to expel Harry. It was three to four inches thick. It contained every single negative aspect from the day he started school. They even included the letter the play school teacher had written for the psychologist. We had provided all of this information to the school. It included that letter in the report. The report clearly showed, and I was able to show from the report was-----