THE HIGH Court has awarded costs to the State against a student with dyslexia who lost her action alleging discrimination through the attachment of special explanatory notes to her Leaving Cert stating she was not assessed on spelling and grammatical elements of language subjects.
Before she sat the Leaving in 2001, Kim Cahill had asked for and obtained an exemption from assessment in relation to spelling and grammar elements of language subjects. Her Leaving Cert stated she had received those exemptions.
The Equality Tribunal upheld her complaint the annotations effectively labelled her as disabled and directed the Minister for Education to pay compensation of €6,000 to her and to another student who had made a similar complaint. It also required the Minister to issue both students with new Leaving Certificates without the notations.
The Minister appealed to the Circuit Civil Court which in 2007 upheld the appeal. Ms Cahill then appealed the Circuit Court decision to the High Court, which last week dismissed her appeal.
When the matter came back before Mr Justice Éamon de Valera yesterday to deal with the costs issue, he granted an application by David Keane SC, for the Minister, for an order for costs against Ms Cahill. The costs application was opposed by Siobhán Phelan, for Ms Cahill, on grounds that the case was important and a matter of public interest.
Mr Keane said the Equality Authority could have brought the complaint but it was a route it had decided not to pursue. The judge agreed the case could have been maintained by the authority and said, in the circumstances, he was obliged to award costs against Ms Cahill.
On the application of Ms Phelan, Mr Justice De Valera agreed to put a stay on the costs order pending an appeal being lodged within 21 days. In rejecting Ms Cahill’s claim last week, he ruled the department acted in accordance with international best standards in annotating Ms Cahill’s certificate. Failure to record the “reasonable accommodation” would “adversely affect the integrity of the testing process” and “essentially defeat the purpose of the exam”.