A six-year-old autistic boy from Cork City has finally been offered a special school place after facing repeated rejections over the last two years.<\/p>\n
During that time, Kellie Mullins\u2019 son Leon, who is autistic, non-verbal, and has global developmental delay, was rejected from 17 schools, with Ms Mullins saying it was “starting to make me think that no one wanted to deal with him and his disability”.<\/p>\n
However, this week he has been offered a place in Carrignavar Special School, currently operating from Fermoy, some distance from his home on Blarney Street on the northside of Cork City.<\/p>\n
Ms Mullins said her son should have been finishing junior infants in the coming weeks. \u201cInstead he\u2019s been at home with me full time,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The school place he was offered will start in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be very tricky to get to the school but it\u2019s the only one he\u2019s been offered in the two years I\u2019ve been applying so I have to accept,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Prior to receiving the news he had been offered a place, Ms Mullins said that, at home, there had been \u201cno clear separation between rest, play, and learning”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n It all blends into one place. It\u2019s heartbreaking\u2026 Leon not being in school means his world has become very small and repetitive, all centred around home and me.\n <\/p>\n
Over the past two years, they have engaged with the National Council for Special Education and a special educational needs organiser. They also contacted the Department of Education and children’s ombudsman, who said they cannot intervene in school placement decisions.<\/p>\n
Up until Tuesday evening, the family had no placement and \u201cno timeline for when or if one will become available\u201d, said Ms Mullins.<\/p>\n
The Irish Examiner contacted the Department of Education about the issue on Friday and again on Monday.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, Ms Mullins was contacted with the offer of a place, and a spokesperson for the department replied to the Irish Examiner hours later, saying it \u201cdoes not comment on individual cases\u201d.<\/p>\n
Prior to being offered the school place, Ms Mullins said: \u201cAs a mother, it is extremely painful to be in a position where you cannot access education for your child despite doing everything asked of you.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son is not a case file or an application \u2014 he is a six-year-old child who needs structure, safety, and support. We are not asking for anything beyond that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leon\u2019s case was raised in the D\u00e1il by Sinn F\u00e9in Cork North-Central TD Thomas Gould earlier this year, and he received a response from the NCSE confirming the local Special Educational Needs Organiser had been supporting the family since September 2025, \u201cfollowing difficulties in securing a school placement\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Gould told the Irish Examiner: \u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable that he had to wait this long, and now he\u2019s a year behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving access to early intervention is vital, how these children progress in life often depends on supports they get when they\u2019re young, and Leon is a year behind where he should be.<\/p>\n
\u201cKellie has had to go to TDs and the local press \u2014 she shouldn\u2019t have had to fight that hard to get a school place when it\u2019s Leon\u2019s legal right to an education.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also raised concern about ongoing delays with the school itself, which is now months delayed moving to its permanent home in Carrignavar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A six-year-old autistic boy from Cork City has finally been offered a special school place after facing repeated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,6999,43,1907,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-448275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-munster","tag-news","tag-regional","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}