Courts / Ireland / Report

Senior judge welcomes efforts to resolve 'dramatic' increase in special needs assessment cases

Summary

A senior High Court judge, Mr Justice Charles Meenan, welcomed efforts to address a dramatic rise in judicial review cases against the HSE concerning the assessment of children with special needs. Lawyers for the HSE and 20 families explained that the HSE has been working to clear a backlog, noting no funding shortage but a shortage of assessors, with 695 vacancies. The HSE plans to report staff shortages directly to the Minister for Health. The backlog was partly caused by the High Court deeming preliminary assessments invalid. The HSE has no control over educational needs assessments, which are carried out by the National Council for Special Education under the Minister for Education. The judge noted that normally 2–3 new cases appear weekly, but since October the average rose to 7–8.

Who, what, where, when and why

What: Report matter: Senior judge welcomes efforts to resolve 'dramatic' increase in special needs assessment cases. Procedural stage: hearing_or_decision

When:

• 2022-12-14 Publication

Why: However, he said that the increase in cases was problematic because the judicial review system was not set up to deal with the large volume of cases coming before him. CNI source report

Places mentioned

Topics

Stage Hearing Or Decision

Read the original CNI report