Special Educational Needs Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24 ============================================================ Shane Moynihan (FF), Dublin Mid-West Today, I speak to the Minister of State about the need for expansion and reform of our approach to dyslexia, dyspraxia, apraxia of speech and the other associated difficulties around literacy for children in our schools in particular. As the Minister of State knows and as I have discussed with him on many occasions, this is something that is very important to me but also something that affects 10% of our population, which is the percentage perceived to have dyslexia, notwithstanding the other difficulties with dyspraxia and apraxia of speech as well. Ultimately, access to the curriculum, participation in school and participation in the school community that the Minister of State referred to in the previous answer is all predicated on being able to read, write and use the tools that are provided in our schools. The Minister of State and I have met many groups from up and down my constituency and further afield where they point to the how the purpose of this area of policy and our approach to policy not only need review, but reform. The international evidence shows that there is no substitute for a systematic, highly focused, outcome-focused intervention over a number of years in a separate setting to assist those with dyslexia and ensure they are not locked out of the curriculum. We have made huge strides in this country and the Minister of State has been the reason for a large part of that in rolling out the number of special classes we have available for students with autism. What I am proposing today is that we now look at that same model for how we approach allowing people to participate fully in the curriculum and take account of their speech and language difficulties. I appreciate the investment there has been in special education teaching over the last number of years and also the efforts that individual schools have made to assist those with dyslexia in their school populations, but there is massive variation across schools. There is massive variability in how this is interpreted and we need a cohesive and standardised approach, similar to what we have done for children with autism. The fact that brings this into focus for me is that if we look at the populations in our prisons and at our populations who are at risk and are marginal, the prevalence of dyslexia, dyspraxia and apraxia of speech among is particularly high. That in and of itself tells me a story. The people who feel they have been locked out of the curriculum feel like they have been locked out of society as well. The evidence points to a very effective solution here, which is that systematic, outcome-focused approach through a reading class or a reading school, which have been shown to be extremely successful in this country. All I am asking today is that we consider reform of this entire area, that we would look at the experience of groups like Finding Charlie's Voice, and Crack the Code, which have taken a very proactive and evidence-based approach to identifying what we need to do in this area to avoid the variation across schools. I am not casting aspersions on the work that teachers do because there are very committed teachers in this space. It is about making sure we have a time-limited outcome and that, after this intervention to assist those with dyslexia takes place, they are able to go on, participate in the mainstream curriculum and achieve their potential. That is the ask I am putting to the Minister of State today. Reading classes are not the only part of that toolbox. There is also the question of ensuring that initial teacher training at our teacher training colleges provides teachers with the tools to quickly screen and identify dyslexia, dyspraxia and apraxia of speech so that they know how to signpost to the particular services that are needed, and to make it easy for principals and special education teachers to refer those children who need help to reading classes. The first step here is for us to think about how we approach dyslexia in our schools and how we learn from what we have done successfully in the field of autism and apply that same model to the field of dyslexia. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-24