'Educational rights in irish law' (Thomson Round Hall, 2006) Conor O'Mahony

• Author: Ronan Keane
• Position: Former Chief Justice of Ireland
• Pages: 209-212

2007] Book Review: “Educational Rights in Irish Law” 209

BOOK REVIEW

“EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS IN IRISH LAW”

(Thomson Round Hall, 2006)

Conor O’Mahony

THE HON. MR. JUSTICE RONAN KEANE∗

The approach of our law makers to the regulation of Irish

education reminds one of Bus Eireann – you wait an hour for a

bus and then three or four arrive together. So after decades when

the only statutory intervention in education was the school

attendance legislation, the Education Act 1998 was followed by

the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, the Education for Persons with

Special Educational Needs Act 2004 and the Disability Act 2005.

The arrival on the statute book of this vast body of novel

legislation led to the welcome publication last year of Special

Educational Needs and the Law by Mary Meaney, Karl

Monaghan and Nessa Kiernan. Now we have a further valuable

contribution from Dr Conor O’Mahony who is a lecturer in the

Faculty of Law in University College Cork.

The historical background from which our educational

structures emerged and the elaborate treatment of the family and

education in the Constitution have given rise to difficult legal and

constitutional issues, some of which have yet to be resolved, as

Dr O’Mahony eloquently demonstrates. The Constitution

acknowledges the role of the family as “the primary and natural

educator of the child” but obliges the State to provide for free

primary education and other educational facilities required by

“the public good”. What precisely is meant by “education” and

similar expressions is one of the problems with which the courts

have had to grapple.

While Dr O’Mahony is certainly correct in saying that this

was one of the issues which the judgments of the Supreme Court

in Sinnott v. Minister for Education1 did not resolve, it is surely

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∗Former Chief Justice of Ireland.

1 [2001] 2 I.R. 545 (S.C.).