High Court: Decision to refuse school transport for autistic boy quashed due to inadequate reasoning

Killian Flood BL

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2021] IEHC 246
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Ms Justice Niamh Hyland

The case centred on the interpretation for the eligibility criteria for the transport scheme and whether the Appeals Board gave proper reasons for refusing the boy’s application. In giving judgment in the case, Ms Justice Niamh Hyland considered that there was a clear obligation on the Appeals Board to provide reasons for its decisions. However, the court held that “there is no trace of any attempt by the Appeals Board to grapple with, and resolve, this issue in its Decision.”

Background

The Minster for Education administered a school transport scheme for children with a diagnosed disability, where free school transport was provided. For a child with special educational needs to avail of the scheme, certain criteria had to be met. First, the child needed to have a diagnosed disability and second, the child had to attend “the nearest recognised mainstream school, special class/special school or a unit that is or can be resourced to meet their special educational needs.”

The applicant was a boy with autism and previously attended a mainstream school. However, his parents decided to move him to a smaller school with smaller classes after his diagnosis because he did not function well in noisy or busy environments.

The nearest school to the boy had an average class size of 30 students and the principal said that they could not meet his educational needs as a result. As such, the parents sent the boy to another school in the county.

An application was subsequently made under the transport scheme to take the boy to and from school. In the application, a local Special Educational Needs Organiser checked a box which confirmed that the new school was not “the nearest to the child’s home that is, or can be, resourced to meet the child’s educational needs.” As such, the Department of Education refused the application, saying that that the boy was not eligible for the scheme because he was not attending the nearest school to him.

An appeal was lodged with the Appeals Board, where the applicant made written submissions on the appropriate test for determining his eligibility. Specifically, it was claimed that the second limb of the eligibility test required an individualised assessment of the applicant’s needs to determine if a school was the nearest appropriate school.

In determining the case, the Appeal Board issued a short letter to the applicant stating that his appeal had been refused because he was not eligible for the scheme. The only reason provided to the boy was that he was not attending the nearest school to meet his educational needs. The boy later brought judicial review proceedings seeking to quash the decision.

High Court

The trial judge began by considering the relevant case law and the duty to provide reasons for a decision. The court considered Connelly v. An Bord Pleanala [2018] 2 I.L.R.M. 453 and MD v. Minister for Social Protection [2016] IEHC 70, ruling that the duty to give reasons could not be reduced to a box-ticking exercise and that any decision must outline the factors taken into account when determining a case. A good decision will inform a party in general terms why a particular conclusion was reached and allows a party to know whether they should appeal. Further, it was held that detailed reasons were important to identify whether a decision-maker had considered all the evidence in the case.

Applying the law to the facts of the case, Mr Justice Hyland held that the impugned decision of the Appeals Board was defective in two respects. First, the decision did not address the question of the correct interpretation of the eligibility criteria which were to be applied. The applicant asserted in his appeal that an individualised assessment had to be made by the Appeal Board when considering the special education needs of a student and whether a school met those needs.

The court noted that the respondents had made a cogent argument at the hearing regarding an alternative interpretation of the eligibility test. It was said that the two criteria for eligibility must be read together, and that the second limb (being the location of the nearest school) was to be mechanically applied after their diagnosed disability had been assessed.

However, the court pointed out that there was no attempt by the Appeals Board to assess the proper interpretation of the eligibility test in its decision, despite it clearly being a substantive issue in the proceedings due to the written submissions provided to the Board. Even if there was an implicit rejection of the boy’s submissions in the original decision, there was a total absence of reasons why that rejection occurred.

In the absence of any adequate reasons, the court outlined several potential rationales for the decision reached by the Appeals Board. It was then said that “the very fact that the Decision requires to be puzzled over in this way demonstrates the deficit in reasoning.”

Further, it was held that the decision was unsatisfactory because the Appeals Board failed to identify the educational placement type that properly met the boy’s needs or where the nearest recognised school unit that would meet those needs.

Conclusion

The court concluded by stating that the Department of Education had established the Appeals Board for good reasons and that “all this is set at nought if the Board are free to simply announce their decisions without adequately explaining same, so that parents or guardians unsuccessful in appeals against refusal to provide school transport cannot understand why.” Further, the absence of adequate reasons undermined the independence of the Appeals Board. However, it was noted that a decision of the Appeals Board did not need to be written the same standard as a court judgment.

In the circumstances, the court determined that no adequate reasons were provided for the decision and, as such, the court duly quashed the decision. The matter was remitted to the Appeals Board for fresh consideration.