The High Court has awarded costs against a woman with dyslexia who lost her action against the State alleging discrimination in the Leaving Certficate.
Kim Cahill, prior to sitting the Leaving in 2001, had asked for and obtained an exemption from assessment in relation to spelling and grammar elements of language subjects. Her Leaving Certificate 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 another student who made a similar complaint. It also required the Minister to issue both students with new Leaving Certificates without the notations.
The Minister for Education appealed to the Circuit Civil Court which in 2007 upheld the appeal and 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 Eamon 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 Siobhan Phelan, for Ms Cahill, on grounds 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 they 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 awards 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, Mr Justice de Valera ruled the Department of Education acted at all times in accordance with international best standards in annotating the Certificate to reflect the fact Ms Cahill had secured exemptions from assessment on certain elements.
Failure to record the “reasonable accommodation” made to Ms Cahill would “adversely affect the integrity of the testing process” and “essentially defeat the purpose of the exam in the first place”, he said.