Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I am asking the Minister for Education to intervene to ensure that the comprehensive review of the reasonable accommodations at certificate examinations, RACE, scheme will be completed by the State Examinations Commission prior to the 2025 examinations.

As the Minister of State will probably be aware, this is World Dyslexia Awareness Day. Ten per cent of the population is dyslexic. Thirteen thousand students in our education system are dyslexic. What we are looking for today is clear, namely the granting of additional time for people with dyslexia who are sitting State examinations. We are not looking to reinvent the wheel. This accommodation applies across Europe. Ireland is an outlier in the European context.

When people go to third level, they have the option of additional time being provided when sitting exams. For some bizarre reason, however, the State Examinations Commission has not granted additional time to people. That is a sin. It does not make sense. We are hanging 13,000 children out to dry because we cannot get our act together here.

I raised this matter with representatives from the commission at a meeting of the relevant joint committee. I was informed that it would take two to three years to complete the review. That means children sitting the junior certificate this year will not have any chance of having additional time provided when they sit the leaving certificate. It is unacceptable that I was given this response at a committee of these Houses. That cannot, should not and will not work.

The students in question need to be given a chance. We want them to reach their full potential. We do not want them to be stressed. We do not want barriers put in front of them. What is being said is that the review of the system to provide people with the additional time they require may take two or three years to complete.

What really annoys me is that when people get to third level, they gets these accommodations. I have spoken to many students who have used the reports that they got in primary school to get the additional time.It does not cost extra money. What they do is place a sticker on the table and the student gets additional time off the back of that. There are no financial implications. The most insulting line that we came across from the State Examinations Commission is it does not want to give dyslexic kids an unfair advantage. Could you imagine that is what the commission came up with? It is just not good enough. We are failing students.

Today is World Dyslexia Awareness Day. There will be a meeting in Buswells Hotel shortly at which I will speak. I have spoken about this for years and I will keep speaking until dyslexic pupils get what they deserve, namely, equal opportunity, which is being denied by a State board. I am looking for the Minister to intervene, not to give me another excuse. I want her to intervene and ensure the Department she is in charge of delivers. If not, another cohort of children will go through stress and pain and will not reach their full potential because we cannot deliver what we should be delivering. No more excuses.

A petition is being circulated to every public representative in the country asking them to support additional time being granted. I have signed it, as have many of my colleagues. I ask every Member of the Oireachtas and every councillor to sign it. Unless we get this change, we will continue to fail 13,000 students and the youth of Ireland. That makes no logical sense.

If anybody tells me that we are giving dyslexic kids an unfair advantage, I will go mad. That is the line we got from the State Examinations Commission. The time has come for change. We need to have movement on this issue. I am disappointed that on World Dyslexia Awareness Day the senior Minister is not in attendance. I have great respect for the Minister of State but this is an issue that deserves the attention of the Minister. It is as big an issue as there will ever be.