Deputy Kenny raised the issue during a debate on school transport in the Dáil this week.
Speaking to the Leitrim Observer, Deputy Kenny stated: "We have a lot of children in Leitrim who are going to special classes in schools, many of them who have autism but there are also children with mild and intellectual disabilities and a various range of disabilities; some with multiple diagnoses. Some of them would be more suited to a special school but there is no special school in Leitrim. There is one in Sligo that some children go to and there is also one in Longford, St. Christopher's."
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He said that children have to travel "quite long distances in many instances" and said that he felt it was vital that a special school is established in Leitrim for children with mild to profound disabilities similar to St. Christopher's. All the schools that the children are traveling to are a long distance away."
He continued that he knows of children travelling for over an hour each way to get to their school. He said: "A special school is something that we could establish; we don't need to have huge numbers; if you have ten to 15 children, you can establish a special school and it runs from school starting age of four or five right up to the age of 18. It's not like you have a primary and a secondary."
Mr Kenny said he is going to formally write to the minister about the issue and seek a meeting. "I'm going to talk to the children's disability network team (CDNT) and get something sent on to the families of the children and it's not just for the children in school now but we will also have to look towards the future too."
He said that children are travelling an hour and more to get to the various schools and "there is a big cost in transportation and you also have a situation where if you have a child that needs a special class and if there is space within the schools within five or ten kilometres, you might have to 50km to get a class. Then transportation is organised, which is usually a taxi. The taxi comes every morning and picks your child up and drives 50km and then you could have situation the following year where a space opens up near you and a child from another area is traveling to that school because there are no spaces near them. So you have a system where you have children with disabilities criss-crossing over and back across the country because of the scarcity of spaces of these classes."
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He said that for many children with autism, routine is essential in ensuring they get the most out of school "so if they get used to getting on a bus every morning and going to a particular place, meeting a particular set of colleagues in a classroom, taking them away from that is a huge upheaval in their lives. So, it's important that the initial place that they go is the place they stay and that it's convenient and local and that's a big problem because in a lot of cases it's not."
He concluded: "Some families are dealing with transportations issues and they may have a place in a school but it's outside of Leitrim and they can't get transport to it. Even if they do get transport to it, the tax that brings them is bringing other children too and it might have to go 20km out of the way to pick them up so you have them triangulating around the country with them."
