Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Last week I raised the issue of the discriminatory introduction of Garda vetting of access students at Dublin Institute of Technology, DIT. I would like to put on the record that since last week it has reversed that decision and realised that it was a negative move. I would like to congratulate it for reversing that so quickly.

I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Education and Skills to the House to discuss the issue of discalculia, which is the maths form of dyslexia and which can be really debilitating for anybody who suffers from it. I have personal understanding of the suffering that is involved in trying to access third level education. Currently Trinity College Dublin is, I believe, the only college offering a maths waiver. The problem is, if a person accepts this maths waiver, they drop maths from the leaving certificate. That is a positive for someone that has this disability, but the problem is that if a person drops maths from the leaving certificate the other institutes of higher education, HEIs, do not operate the same waiver system, so if that person has applied to other universities on the CAO and they drop maths, they will not get into any other university and their only option is Trinity. That is something we need to look at.

We have moved really far in the area of dyslexia but we have not moved very far in recognising the disability of discalculia. This is something that we need to discuss with the Minister. He has outlined many areas on which he wants to work in respect of numeracy but unless we address disability attached to numeracy, we cannot address numeracy as a whole.