Under the provisions of the Education Act 1998, the Board of Management is the body charged with the direct governance of a school. The welfare and safety of pupils is of paramount importance and schools have a duty of care to the pupils under their control. School management should, therefore, take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that no pupil or staff member is exposed to unacceptable risk.
It is important that the school management authorities would request parents to ensure that the school is made aware of any medical condition suffered by any pupil attending. Where the school is aware of potential difficulties that may arise as a consequence of a medical condition suffered by one or more pupils, it may be possible for the management authorities, working in conjunction with the parents, teachers, staff and children to put preventative measures in place to lessen the possibility of any difficulties arising or to ensure that, if a pupil suffers from an illness requiring medication, that appropriate treatment is available.
The administration of medicines in primary schools is the subject of an agreement between the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) and the organisations representing school management at primary level. While this agreement specifies that no teacher can be required to administer medicine or drugs to pupils, it also sets out procedures that must be followed where a teacher or teachers agree to do so.
The position is that either the parents of the child should make themselves available to administer medication as required or where they wish the staff in the school to administer it they should indemnify the school.
Where a child requires adult assistance to administer medicine and where the extent of assistance required would overly disrupt normal teaching time, SNA support may be allocated for this purpose.
It is a matter for the Board of Management to ensure that SNAs are in a position to effectively meet the care needs of pupil/pupils for whom SNA support has been allocated in the school when appointing an SNA.
Where specific training is required, the Board of Management should liaise with the Health Service Executive (HSE) in order to ensure that the HSE provides guidance and training that enables the SNA to meet the care needs of the pupil in an appropriate manner. It is a matter for individual school authorities to make such arrangements locally.
It is my Department's experience that once the matter has been discussed in detail with the Board of Management and staff of a school, and once all parties are clear as to the procedures to be followed, arrangements can normally be made to administer the type of medicine which may be required.
