Extra Time in State Exams for Students with Dyslexia and Dyscalculia: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Shane Curley (FF), Cultural and Educational Panel

I move:
That Seanad Éireann:
recognises that:
- 15,000 special education teachers have been provided to enable students with learning difficulties, including dyslexia, to attend their local mainstream schools;
- the majority of students with dyslexia and dyscalculia attend mainstream schools;
- schools receive a substantial additional teaching allocation to support children with special education needs who are in mainstream classes;
- the National Educational Psychological Service provides professional learning opportunities to all post primary school teachers on supporting young people with literacy difficulties, including dyslexia;
agrees that:
- education is the great leveller and the great enabler, the bedrock of our country’s continued social and economic progress;
- education is at the heart of all of our ambitions as a country;
- our education system must support and nurture every student to reach their full potential;
notes that:
- the State Examinations Commission is reviewing the Reasonable Accommodations at the Certificate Examinations or RACE scheme to ensure extra time will be in place for students with dyslexia and dyscalculia sitting their Junior and Leaving Certificate exams in June 2026;
- the State Examinations Commission is independent from the Department of Education and Youth;
- the State Examinations Commission has asked students with dyslexia and dyscalculia to come forward so that it can set specific criteria for them, including extra time, for the exams in June;
- primary legislation cannot be used to introduce the extra time;
calls for the Minister for Education and Youth to:
- update the House on the progress of the review of the RACE scheme in relation to extra time for students with dyslexia and dyscalculia sitting Junior and Leaving Certificate exams;
- update the House on the engagement between the State Examinations Commission and students with dyslexia and dyscalculia;
- ensure that extra time will be available for all students with dyslexia and dyscalculia sitting State Examinations in 2026;
- continue to develop supports for students with dyslexia and dyscalculia;
- continue to work to ensure our education system is fully inclusive of all students.
Extra time for students with dyslexia or dyscalculia has been an issue forever but, in particular, since 2009 when an expert advisory group advised that it should be rolled out across the board for exams at leaving certificate and junior certificate level in Ireland. I thank my party for giving me the opportunity to bring forward this urgent Private Members' business today. I particularly thank my colleague, Senator Ollie Crowe, who has been working hard behind the scenes with me on this issue and I know he cares deeply about this as well.
This debate is particularly timely as forms for reactivating accommodations that were already provided at junior certificate level and forms for new applications became available last month. The closing date for schools to send applications to the State Examinations Commission, SEC, is 21 November, with decisions returning to schools before the end of February.
I will provide a quick background to dyslexia. As a teacher, I have seen how problems can compound this issue. A student may have a reading difficulty, then cannot finish the homework for the next day and then loses their confidence in a subject they once loved, particularly for me with the Irish language, simply because they were born with dyslexia or dyscalculia. Secondary consequences include reading comprehension problems and reduced reading and writing experience, impeding growth in language, knowledge and expression and overall academic achievement. These can go on to affect psychological well-being and employment opportunities. In 2022, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, noted that dyslexia was one of the roadblocks preventing gardaí from fulfilling Irish language requirements. The impacts that start small grow until they touch all parts of Irish society.
I will now provide background on dyscalculia. It is a learning difference that can cause difficulties with core maths, causing a lack of intuitive grasp of number-sense. A lack of confidence in their own math abilities can worsen what students already struggle with. Like dyslexia, it occurs on a spectrum, with some people mildly affected and others more severely. It affects approximately 6% to 8% of the population and there is a high rate of co-diagnosis of dyslexia and dyscalculia, leading to more challenges for those students.
The SEC does provide some accommodations for students with dyslexia, including grammar waivers, scribes and assistive technology. This is all welcome, however, dyslexia can also affect processing speed. In a Dyslexia Ireland survey of 2021, 84% of respondents said they wanted extra time to be available to students with dyslexia in exams. However, the SEC does not grant additional time in its own right, but only as a consequence of other arrangements when someone qualifies for the RACE scheme. One year after their leaving certificate, should a student decide to go to college, they will get extra time in their exams if they have dyslexia.
Not only is there a difference between second level and third level handling of extra time, there is also a significant difference between Ireland and the rest of the European Union. Across Europe, extra time for students with dyslexia varies from 11% to 33%. Italy, Norway, France, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK all show up for their dyslexic students, leaving Ireland in the dust. In other countries, time is a tool to level the playing field. In Ireland, time, or a lack thereof, sets students up to fail. Carmen Vidal Rodeiro is a senior research officer at Cambridge University Press and Assessment. In 2022, she conducted a study on this very topic of controversy around the practice of providing accommodations in her paper titled Equal Opportunity or Unfair Advantage. The results revealed that students with accommodations performed similarly or slightly worse than students without accommodations, suggesting that in most cases the accommodations worked as intended and helped to level the playing field.
If extra time evidently helps level the playing field in other countries, why are we so far behind the curve? The public are really engaged on this and 33,000 of people recently signed Dyslexia Ireland's petition to roll this out for the 2026 exams. A few weeks ago, we had Sive O'Brien, a senior cycle student from Our Lady's Bower in Athlone, at the education committee. Sive, who is preparing for her leaving certificate, spoke candidly about her experience sitting the junior certificate without extra time and reflected on the toll it took on her confidence and well-being. Speaking to committee members, Sive said:
It was a very stressful time especially when I went in knowing I would run out of time. My first exam was English and I badly ran out of time in that exam. That had a knock-on effect for all of my other exams.
[...]
It is very disheartening [when you] put in all of the effort and done all the study and then you cannot show what you have learned.
When asked, she said she could not finish a single exam in its entirety. She is a really intelligent young person who did not finish a single one of her junior certificate exams. Sive explained that research from other countries indicates that students perform better and experience less stress when given reasonable accommodations such as extra time. Sive said, "students [sitting exams] in other countries who did receive extra time had better results, [had] better well-being and were properly accommodated so they could achieve their fullest potential." In response to hearing Sive had not finished any of her exams, the CEO of the SEC said, "examinations are ... inherently stressful". That is a quote from the SEC. It shows that body is slightly out of touch with what the experience really is for students on the ground.
We all remember the stress of State exams and, indeed, any other exams we have taken throughout our lives. However, it is unreasonable to think students with dyslexia are not suffering from additional stress, trying to complete exams under conditions that have no accommodations for their needs. The stress of feeling punished for having dyslexia, something completely out of their control, is not normal exam stress. It is something more and it is hugely damaging to their confidence and self-esteem as well as not allowing them to reach their full potential.
This goes on to have a wider societal impact. The report I mentioned from Dyslexia Ireland, conducted in 2021, of 761 parents, said 96% of parents agree that having dyslexia can have a negative impact on a person's mental health, particularly if it is undiagnosed and unsupported. Self-esteem, anxiety and mental health was the highest-rated challenge noted by respondents to this survey, at 69%, with about the same percentage of parents reportedly anxious about their child's future and work prospects. This is so prevalent that Dyslexia Ireland lists a lack of self-confidence and poorer self-image as one of the many indicators of dyslexia for students aged 12 years or older.
As regards employability, research has shown that educational attainment increases the chances of legitimate work, and employees across this island help our society function at its best. I will save my comments about the SEC's handling of the Irish language, but I will say that the less people who speak Irish, the harder it will be to reach our 2030 goals of having 20% of civil servants able to speak the Irish language. That can restrict the number of gardaí and other public servants we can hire in this country.
In that 2021 study, Dyslexia Ireland found that 98% of respondents felt that people with dyslexia often have hidden potential. The whole country is counting on the SEC to help students to discover that hidden potential by providing academically recommended extra time for students with dyslexia and dyscalculia. On that recommendation, the people who the SEC are about to pilot and send out for review will be third level researchers; it already gives ten minutes per hour or part of an hour as part of an exam, something I have repeated ad nauseam in this Chamber and in committee.
I am not sure if the Minister of State is aware, but the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, the Minister, Deputy McEntee's Cabinet colleague, gave us a confirmation in very good faith a few weeks ago that this would be sorted for the 2026 leaving certificate. He said, "The key point is that this will be concluded and communicated in order that it will be in place for the ... [2026 leaving cert exams]. We are at an advanced stage. The work is largely done. Let us finish it off." That is a direct quote from the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, a couple of months ago in this Chamber. I believe he said it in good faith and was acting on behalf of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, in good faith, but it is something we have to come good on now. This relieved so much stress for students at the time when they got this news. There was huge celebration from people with dyslexia that current students about to hit the 2026 leaving certificate would not face the same trauma as previous students throughout the years. I am urging the Minister of State to intervene and ensure that the State Examinations Commission has this in place for the 2026 leaving certificate so we are no longer letting down the students of this country.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:18+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12