Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I spent most of this debate in my office listening to the contributions. I want to compliment the Senators. It was a great debate with great knowledge and I am very proud of the House tonight.

I want to speak about the Dyslexia Association of Ireland. It does amazing work. It is a fantastic organisation that deals with parents in particular, as well as teachers. It has done fantastic work over the last 50 years and that needs to be acknowledged. I do a little bit of work with it and I want to acknowledge its great efforts. Looking at what the association does on the ground, one thing is building up self-esteem with children who are dyslexic in their workshops, which is really important. Self-esteem is a real issue with children who have dyslexia, and also adults to some degree, but particularly children. Those workshops are really important for dyslexic kids. There is also the work the association does in teacher and parent training. Parents, like all of us, need training to know exactly what aids their child needs when they are dyslexic. The work the association does on those two things is exceptionally important. There are also the workshops that happen outside school hours for children which are a real bonus. Those workshops, which are probably weekly, give real understanding among parents and children and bring them up to what we need to do regarding teaching our children to learn. That is exactly what it is about: teaching our child how to learn in a different way. We would have taught our kids the ABC alphabet but that was completely wrong. It is all phonics now. It has totally changed and we did not realise. Now, 11 years later, we could write a book on it. These are the big issues that we have in society.

There needs to be urgent reform of the education system and how children are looked on in education forums. There are massive issues. Senators have mentioned mandatory teacher training. To have a scenario today where teachers do not have training to identify when a child is dyslexic is appalling. We really need to look at how our education colleges are training our teachers. Continuous training is the biggest issue. We need to make sure that the teachers in the system can be brought up to speed on how we can work with our children. The simple and easy win is extra time for exams. That is the key issue. Students need more time to compute so that they can fill out exam papers. For me, though, the main issue is technology. It gives glasses to a child who does not have the ability to see. A reader pen, which is a fantastic tool, gives a child the opportunity to read with a pen. The child can hear the word. A child can type into an iPad and it will then speak for him or her. These kinds of technology are the ultimate game changer and are what we need to be talking about, but there is resistance within some schools. Schools do not understand what these technologies are about or why and where we use them. It will take a holistic approach across the entire education system to bring the system up to speed. If that assistive technology can be taken away during the Drumcondra reading test, which is an assessment given to children, it is appalling. I know a parent of a child who is on the third centile. His assistive technology was taken away from him when he did his Drumcondra test last year. We cannot stand over this. No one can. It would be like taking away the glasses of a child with a visual impairment and expecting him or her to do an exam.

This shows the lack of joined-up thinking in the area, and is why our debate is so important. It is also why I have spent most of the debate in my office. This is about trying to get change and small, basic wins to ensure that our children have the ability to perform and be equal in the classroom. That is what we need to see today. We need to see a complete reform of the education system when it comes to dyslexic people. For that to happen, a complete ethos change will be required by educational colleges all the way up. That is where we need to start.

If we were to get one win, it would be with the technology. Having that technology gives our students the ability to run. If we can do that and make a start, society will thank us. Some 10% of our communities need this help and it is in our gift to give it.