Mother in court over daughter’s poor school attendance

A BUNCLODY mother whose daughter was only attending school on occasion had her case adjourned at a recent sitting of Enniscorthy District Court.

The woman is charged with failing to cause her daughter to attend school on November 15, 2016.

She was in court to answer the charge.

Acting for the Child and Family Agency solicitor Caitriona Walsh said that the child had a reasonable school attendance but said that her mother seemed to think it was adequate to only send the child three days a week.

The woman told Judge Gerard Haughton that ‘she was doing her best’. She alleged her daughter had been hit in the stomach by an older child in school which put her off going for some time. However she said she hadn’t made a complaint to the school about the alleged incident.

Judge Haughton said he ‘took a very serious view of parents not sending their children to school’ adding that ‘saying they go three days out of five isn’t grand with me’.

He adjourned the case until September 13 and told the mother ‘there is no reason why, if your daughter was assaulted in school, that you shouldn’t get the same treatment as any other parent’.