Ms Andrea Feeney:

I might come back to the 2009 recommendation. That came from an advisory group chaired by Áine Hyland, which made a recommendation to expand the additional time within the scheme. It also made two other recommendations, one of which was to remove the spelling and grammar waiver in language subjects, and the other was to remove the pilot of additional time for Irish, English, history and geography. There is additional time, beyond what those examinations should require, on the timetable that applies to all candidates. Therefore, they made a recommendation, on the one hand, to introduce an expanded scheme of additional time, but they also made two other recommendations relating to time. We cannot just pick one recommendation from that report. It has to be looked at in the round. That is why, when we talk about making policy decisions based on evidence, we need time to do the research in order to come up with the evidence to support any change we might make.

It is done at third level. The qualifying criteria at third level are different and stricter. They require a specific diagnosis and a threshold score of 81. In the RACE scheme, we are accommodating students who have threshold scores of 85 or below in reading, spelling and writing, so our scheme is actually a more open scheme. We need some time to finish that piece of work through the review.

As I mentioned, we have already made a change to the additional time on a pilot basis for vision-impaired candidates. We are committed to introducing a pilot for additional time in 2026. I just do not want to build up expectations as to what that pilot will look like, given the number of students who are accommodated within the scheme. The figure of 36,000, or over one in four at this stage, is quite significant. We need time to work with all of the stakeholders through that process.