Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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It is a very valuable question. We talk about reasonable accommodations. I know Niamh and she highlighted something to me that occurred during her French junior certificate exam. In the French exam, there were pictures but Niamh is visually impaired. It was down how somebody described the pictures and Niamh could have lost or gained marks because of what was on the paper. The Sate Examinations Commission could have had a caption saying you are looking at an adult working on a computer. The assistant in the room could have clearly identified that and said what it was or was not.

Has the State Examinations Commission engaged with me? No is the straight answer to that. Should there be reasonable accommodations? Of course, there should be reasonable accommodations. If there is a 5.30 p.m. cut-off for postage, that is fine. Logic tells you to just start earlier.

If I go back to this piece around flexibility. It is where people come out of rooms, or meet in between, that the bond of secrecy as to what is on the paper is broken. Niamh was probably in a special room as she had an interpreter with her.

On equal access to participation in exams, the NDA has done a huge amount of work in this space on how children with additional needs who have the capacity to participate in our examinations are accommodated. It has written a whole review on this, but perhaps I can ask the NDA to look again at how the State exams are equipped to ensure they meet the rights of students with disabilities under the UNCRPD. That is something we can take away and ask the NDA to review.