The British Education Authority was mandated to award £5,000 to a legally blind pupil, Cormac Flynn, who was unjustly denied entry to a summer learning scheme amid the Covid-19 crisis. Due to the imposition of lockdown measures designed to curb the virus outbreak in March 2020, Cormac had already been without his routine in-school assistance for the concluding months of the academic year, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) was informed. His mother was informed that he did not meet eligibility criteria for the home-based learning under the July programme for that year, a contradiction considering the inclusion of blind and visually impaired primary school children, the judiciary was told. “Once one lags behind, regaining lost ground is quite challenging,” expressed Mr Flynn in his testimony on his grievance under The Equality Act, a claim that was partly validated in a resolution dispersed on Monday.
Mr Flynn, advocated by attorney James Kane, instructed by Sinéad Lucey from the Democrat Legal Advice Centres (DLAC), was undergoing his Junior Cert year when the lockdown was implemented and completed his Leaving Cert in June 2023. It was presented that Mr Flynn struggled with a deteriorating ocular disorder, restricting his sight to less than 10 per cent and necessitating magnification for close-range vision tasks. The testimony of Mr Flynn brushed on the fact that due to the restrictions during the epidemic, his special needs assistant was unable to pay him home visits and only appeared ‘occasionally’ to provide direct support. He emphasised that his laptop’s magnifying component was incompatible with Microsoft Teams, the platform utilised for remote education, and that the course materials were unapproachable. Although Mr Flynn benefitted from a CCTV system at school, he encountered difficulties zooming into remotely presented class videos. Mr Flynn’s mother, Eithne Walsh, shared her own experience, explaining her application for the summer scheme in June 2020 with hopes that “someone would grasp Cormac’s unique requirements.”
Testifying, the mother revealed that her son had aspired to be a physiotherapist, hence the necessity for maths and science in his studies. After being denied access to the summer provision scheme, the son felt compelled to abandon honours maths – an act which his mother condemned as “casual discrimination”, and lamented the lack of foresight by those in charge.
By October 2020, Mr Flynn had moved onto his transition year with an opportunity for 40 hours tuition being forthcoming, his mother confirmed. The problem they encountered at this juncture, however, was the absence of available teachers, regardless of their efforts in seeking one.
The situation led to accusations by Mr. Kane, who argued that the Minister for Education closed the schools without guaranteeing the fulfilment of the complainant’s educational requirements. On the contrary, the State held the individual school accountable for providing Mr Flynn’s support.
In relation to the summer provision scheme element of the complaint, the State defended its decision of extending the scheme to certain child categories and not others due to “limited” funding. This political decision linked to “finite resource allocation”, the State submitted, could not be scrutinised under equality legislation by the WRC.
Noticing an increase in programme spending and children participation during the ongoing pandemic, adjudicator Catherine Byrne postulated that the scheme should have considered Mr Flynn’s inclusion judging by a direct assessment of his needs in the summer of 2020.
Ms Byrne ruled that the school was at fault for not providing Mr Flynn with suitable accommodation between March and June 2020, as opposed to the Department of Education being the culprit. She revoked that aspect of the claim stating that it was moot.
However, she sided with Mr Flynn’s complaint regarding the summer provision scheme, directing the Department of Education to compensate him with €5,000.
Ms Lucey from FLAC praised the tribunal’s verdict as “an embodiment of the courage and tenacity of our client and his mother”. The tribunal’s repudiation of the State’s counter-argument – claiming its incapability of adjudicating complaints arising from Government policy or resource allocation was heartening to Ms Lucey, in addition to the extension of the summer provision scheme’s purview to assist blind secondary school students.
Ms Lucey voiced her hope that the future modifications in this field will be informed by a correct use of anti-discriminatory law, as well as the obligations of equality and human rights in the public sector.
The mother of Mr. Flynn expressed that the implications of denying her son were “preventable”. She saw the decision by the WRC as notably acknowledging his rights.
She voiced her hope for better accessibility to supplementary assistance for individuals with disabilities in education due to the WRC’s ruling.