The mother of autistic twins whose plight shocked the nation said she has been driven to despair after waiting six years to them to get a school placement.
In 2019, Darren and Gillian Milne, from North Dublin, detailed their challenges caring for sons Kyle and Ryan, who will turn 11 in March.
As well as being autistic, the boys have ADHD, sensory processing disorder, global developmental delay and OCD.
They are also both nonverbal with low immunity, meaning they pick up regular infections.
Their parents faced losing their home after Darren, a bus driver, was forced to cut his working hours.
The Irish Sunday Mirror can reveal Darren was left with no option but to quit his job to become a full-time carer to his sons – meaning the family’s income consists of €366 and €208.
The couple were also facing the repossession of their home after they fell into four years of arrears because their special needs children require round the clock care.
However, the iCare Housing project has now taken over the ownership of their home and they will now become tenants in their own home from next week.
Speaking last night, heartbroken Gillian, 48, said the situation has had a deep impact on her mental health as her children face their sixth year with no school.
She added: “They are now six years without a school place. Just to give you an idea of their daily routine, they are completely hyper and want to play and go out all the time.
“They can’t be taught by us, we are not teachers. You hear parents saying they struggled during Covid with their children being home schooled, try doing it with two boys who have high special needs.
“The Department of Education has given us 30 hours a week for tutoring. But you have to find the tutor yourself and our tutor is out on maternity leave, she has had three babies so we have been without a tutor during that time.
“I have advertisements up but no responses. We just can’t get a replacement when no one is really doing tuition”.
At the time of their RTE interview in 2019 Micheal Martin raised the issue with the then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. The family wrote to the Taoiseach when Gillian was in hospital a number of weeks ago, outlining the pressure they are under, but so far have received no reply.
She said: “I want the help the children get what they deserve, they are 11 in March, what chance do we have of them talking?
“We are five years now without any therapies and it’s not good enough, we have been hugely let down.
“We have lost our home, we wanted this house to be for our children when we passed away, it won’t be now. Our eldest boy is heartbroken now because he will be left to care for them when he is gone. It is a horrible situation.”
The couple’s eldest son George, who is 20, is now trained as a special needs assistant and his mother describes him as a “third parent”.
She added: “George is an amazing son and his life has been affected massively with this situation. It is a living hell for us.
“You can’t bring both children in one car as they are big enough now to take off each other’s seatbelts, they are very strong and they fight too.
“We adore our boys, but this is non-stop. Our boys can’t use a knife and fork, they can go to the toilet, but you have to wait for them as they can’t clean themselves.They have no safety awareness so if I opened the door they would just run out on the road. You have to watch them all the time.
“If they were in school referrals could be made for speech therapy, occupational therapy but they have had no services since 2017. They are trying to talk but they need intervention with professional services.
“They have fallen off the radar completely. They were in a mainstream school for 13 days in September 2017 but that was a disaster.
“We are at the end of our tether.”
“The boys should be in school but everywhere we go we are refused.
“We needed reports to be considered for special schools, however, we have pay privately for an assessment report which cost €1,800.”
The Department of Education and HSE have been contacted for comment.
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