Extra Time in State Exams for Students with Dyslexia and Dyscalculia: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Linda Nelson Murray (FG), Industrial and Commercial Panel

Sally E. Shaywitz of the Yale Centre for Dyslexia and Creativity said:
...science has moved forward at a rapid pace so that we now possess the data to reliably define dyslexia ... For the student, the knowledge that he is dyslexic is empowering, providing the student with self-understanding and self-awareness of what he has and what he needs to do in order to succeed.
I spoke to my husband about this today. Although not officially diagnosed with dyslexia, he is in no doubt that he has dyslexia. He would describe it as that he has all the information he needs, but sometimes it is harder to process. You would never know it with my husband. He is articulate and has helped me with many a speech. People really enjoy his company and he is passionate about so many things that I sometimes have no clue about. However, for simple tasks like writing an email, birthday card or letter or choosing the words to say, the thought process would take a lot longer than for some other people. An email that would take me two minutes would take my husband 30 minutes, such is the thought that goes into every word. To compensate for how hard he found exams in school, he would write very messily, almost making it confusing, so it was like a disguise. Going through school in the seventies and eighties was very difficult and there was no tolerance for people like him to question that he learned differently. Considering the term "dyslexia" has been used for the last 130 years, I wonder how far we have come. I spoke to a fifth year student last week and she said she would love to learn Irish. Her mother fought for her not to have to do Irish. She would love to but the stress of sitting an exam would be just too much.
I welcome Senator Curley's motion. I had a look at other countries that do accommodate for exams, like the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. In the UK, students with dyslexia can typically receive up to 25% extra time in exams. This means that if an exam is scheduled for two hours, a student with dyslexia might receive an extra 30 minutes. With one in every ten people in Ireland having dyslexia, there could be three in a classroom of 30 people. According to Dyslexia Ireland, 6% to 8% of the population have dyscalculia, which could be another two to three students in the class. I welcome that we are looking at proposals to give people extra time in exams. I spoke to a very close friend of mine whose son, Fionn, was blessed to get into the Catherine McAuley dyslexia school here in Dublin, travelling every day from Meath for two years. It was very hard to have left school in his last two years but he was brave and strong. At 13 years of age Fionn is now standing in front of primary school classes, letting them know that all will be okay if they have dyslexia. Fionn is in the first percentile with severe dyslexia but with a 98% IQ. It is all about the approach. It is invaluable that we do this for children, for our youth and for people sitting exams. Fionn is a total superhero, there is no doubt about that, but he needs more time to read the questions in exams. His mam pointed out recently that in the autumn exams, he did extremely well in the percentage of the exam that he could get to. He just could not get to the rest because he needed more time. It is critical we give students like Fionn more time. He and young people like him need more time.
I will end with this quote: "If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn."

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:18+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12