2026-05-27

I thank the Minister of State for taking my questions and facilitating the change. It did not suit both of us at the time so I appreciate him being here. We have discussed dyslexia quite a lot at the education committee over the last while and over the time since the committee started discussing it I have been contacted by so many parents, support teachers and students about dyslexia and the supports available in our schools at primary and secondary level. Today in The Irish Times there is an article about a mother whose child needs a reading school but there is no place available for them. I want to discuss a number of things. I asked a parliamentary question about reading recovery because there is new research, though perhaps not that new, about the effectiveness of reading recovery. As I am sure the Minister of State is aware, it is a programme used for children early on to help them learn how to read. The mixed research is basically saying it is not as effective for the long term. It can be quite effective immediately but the meta-analysis has come back saying that over a long time reading recovery is not as effective as structured literacy programmes are. On that basis I asked how much money has been spent on reading recovery over the last five years. We are talking about figures of just over €248,000 to almost €370,000. That is a lot of money on a programme that is now being looked at by academics, especially in Australia, as not being an effective use of supports for children with dyslexia. I am very interested in the Department's view on moving more to a structured literacy programme. That means teaching explicit skills. It is not asking a child what they think is going to happen in a particular sentence or what they think a given word is about. That is useless for a child in the long term. It is great for there and then if they are reading Ann and Barry. I am aware they do not read Ann and Barry any more. It was Ann and Barry in my day and that of the Minister of State but they read more interesting books than that now. Those pictures are relied on so much, whereas the explicit nature of teaching in structured literacy programmes leads to a longer-term understanding of words, structures, etc. It is systemic, sequential, cumulative and has a diagnostic way of looking at literacy. It is really important the Department starts to explore whether we are behind the curve here. We are not keeping on top of what the biggest research is saying, which is to move away from reading recovery and more towards structured literacy. I also want to address the extra ten minutes in the exams. That debate was very heated in the education committee with the NCSE and the State Examinations Commission. They wanted extra time to decide whether they were going to give our students with dyslexia extra time. The irony was not lost on anybody. In other jurisdictions exam support far exceeds what we have. There is a lot more flexibility. We have an extra ten minutes coming in for the papers. In other countries candidates are allowed an extra 25% exam time. Other countries also allow access to word processing, computers and all that sort of stuff. It seems to be a lot easier. The process for getting reasonable accommodation here is an absolute nightmare. There are two more things I would like to talk about. What students want when they go to school is proper support not just for reading, spelling and all that sort of stuff but also for how dyslexia affects every part of the body and brain. It is about how those supports can be understood by the students. I want to mention NCPD but I will come back to that.

I thank the Deputy very much for raising the question and also for the change in time, which I appreciate. We in the Department, and the entire Government, have invested heavily in ensuring that all recognised mainstream schools have been allocated additional special education teaching resources to support children with special educational needs, including students with literacy difficulties. Guidelines for schools on the organisation, deployment and use of their special education teachers have been published on the Department's website. For the 2026-27 school year there will be, I think, 15,200 special education teachers allocated to primary and post-primary schools to enable them to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE has the responsibility for planning and co-ordinating school supports for children with special educational needs. The Department does not have a role in individual determinations. Funding is also made available to schools for the purchase of specialised equipment such as computers or software to assist children with special educational needs. This includes children with a specific learning disability, where relevant professionals recommend the equipment as being essential for the provision of education. Schools then apply to the NCSE. A continuum of education provision is in place, covering a full range of needs spanning placement in mainstream classes, with support through more specialised placements either in the special class or special school setting. The Deputy raised the issue of dyslexia in particular. If she looks at the funding that we are giving to special education in particular, she will see that it has grown hugely in recent years and, as I said, we now have over 15,000 teachers. The policy, including international policy, is for children with educational needs to be in mainstream, insofar as is possible, and to support them in mainstream. We are providing a huge amount of funding through the various resources in the Department and the NCSE to ensure that children with dyslexia, in particular, can be accommodated in mainstream education. Much of the discussion that we have had in the House, with the NCSE, with the Department on a continuous basis and with the Oireachtas committee is to ensure that we are targeting children with dyslexia or other literacy difficulties in a meaningful way. We have put in the resources. A huge volume of work is being done by the special education teachers across the country. They are also doing a huge amount of work outside school time to make sure they are equipped to meet the needs of the children and give them the best possible education. We are constantly monitoring this. While the Government and the Department are putting in the resources, the question is whether we are having the desired outcomes. We have evidence to show the support that is being given in mainstream classes, and the outcomes are very positive. We are continuing to monitor that. As we have seen over the decades since Independence, education is constantly evolving, and it is continuing to evolve at the moment. There is a greater understanding of the needs, but also a greater understanding of the need to ensure that the resources we are putting in are targeted in a meaningful way. We need to ensure that the outcomes for children and young people are meaningful, and that they are equipped to lead the best life. To answer the specific question, we are constantly monitoring the resources that we are putting in to ensure we are targeting them in the proper way. I will come back to the Deputy on the other points in my concluding remarks.

I appreciate that the Government is putting a lot of resources into this, and I know the Minister of State is working tirelessly on it. I accept that. However, we can always do things better. It is my job in opposition to always hold the guys on the other side of the House to account, and I like doing that. There are challenges. We do not have enough reading schools. Dyslexia Ireland is saying exactly what the Minister of State is saying, which is that we want to mainstream everybody, but if we do not have the expertise in every single school, we cannot do that. That is why children need to go to specialist services, like reading schools, for a couple of years. We need to rapidly upskill every single member of staff in primary and secondary school, particularly secondary school. In primary school, I think that we are doing excellently, and we are able to identify it. In secondary school, the initial teacher training education, the SNA training and the continuous professional development really need to focus on dyslexia and other disabilities. I do not think the expertise is there. They are subject teachers. I am not in any way being disparaging to any teacher. As the Minister of State knows, I love education, and I love the people who work in it because of all the passion they bring to it. However, we can do this better. There needs to be an inspectorate for the services provided to students with dyslexia. The reason for that is to make sure that the standard is there and that every child is getting the resources they need. Many students come to me saying that they cannot read or write. We can see the number of students who leave mainstream education because they cannot cope in a system that does not work around them. We need to look at that to see where we are letting children fall through the gaps. It is through no fault of their own, or for want of learning. It is the way our system is. We need to make sure that we are able to fully support them in that way. When it comes to computers and so on, we need more resources for every school. There are students who do not get that funding, and they are missing out. We need to make sure they do not miss out.

Therein lies the point. We are continuing to invest hugely, but we have to ensure that we get the outcomes of that investment for children and young people in primary and post-primary schools. There are a lot of teachers and SNAs across the education system. They are working extremely hard, and they are desperately committed to what they are doing. They are constantly looking at new initiatives and trying to find the best way of doing this. We are bringing in teacher training for special education to make sure that it is part of this. There is a constant discussion in relation to the reading schools. We know of the children and other individuals who have gone to the reading schools, and after a number of years, they are able to come back into mainstream school. We can see how that has benefited them. There is a huge volume. There are 15,000 extra special education teachers in the education system. We want to make sure that we can mainstream as much as possible. I take the Deputy’s point on ensuring that we have those available in every school across the country. All of the assistive technology is being rolled out, which is important. For students who have a particular challenge with dyslexia or other reading or literacy issues, it will affect them into later life. Like the Deputy, we all meet people in adulthood, and we would be filling out a form for them, or whatever, and we can see that it has impeded their lives. We understand that. The most important piece is that there is constant investment in all aspects of specialised education. The NCSE and the Department are continuing to monitor this. We will never arrive at a position in the education system where we say that everything is perfect now, because it is constantly evolving, and new information and research are constantly coming through. We are working on it. We will endeavour to make sure we are doing the right thing.