Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran pulls no punches as he talks about his struggles with dyslexia

Minister nicknamed ‘Boxer’ from school days because ‘I could avoid the problem by creating a row’ Minister of State at the OPW Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran: ‘I’ve learned how to deal with it, how to educate myself.’ Photograph: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times Kevin “Boxer” Moran still gets butterflies in his stomach every time he stands up in the Dáil to make a speech. The Minister of State for the Office of Public Works (OPW) receives parliamentary replies from his officials three or four days before he has to deal with them on oral questions in the Dáil, while his colleagues usually get them the day before.He will study his scripts for days in advance and practise speaking them out loud.The Longford-Westmeath TD has severe dyslexia, an issue he only began to properly address when first elected to the Dáil in 2016.READ MORE“I’ve learned how to deal with it, how to educate myself,” he says. He successfully camouflaged his problem for decades. Now 58, he says from 1999 until 2016 as a councillor, “I went in there for 18 years, I suppose, hiding the fact that I couldn’t read, but still I had to do my job”. “And it’s a very delicate thing to talk about in terms of being able to do your job and not being able to read. There’s a stigma.”In his first Dáil term he recalls not making his maiden speech for six months, when all other TDs had spoken in the first days and weeks.Moran says fellow Independent Michael Lowry came into his office one evening and saw he was struggling with his script. “He took it off me and asked, ‘What do you want to say?’” Lowry got him to read it out. “He came in two days in a row, preparing me for it and told nobody.”Some journalists “took a cut” but later apologised when they learned of his dyslexia. He also remembers comments made in Leinster House about him not being able to read and “what class of a Minister will he be?”.“While I’m a very bubbly person, I’m always messing, slagging and that, but I’m still a human being and some things that people say can hurt.”He opened up about his reading difficulties and mental health issues in 2017 on The Late Late Show when he spoke about his depression and a suicide attempt after he had bottled up emotions for years. It was linked to the death of his brother Frank jnr in a motorbike crash, his own very bad injuries in a road collision a week later, financial pressures and his illiteracy. He regularly gets calls from people in crisis, from schools and parents about their children’s dyslexia and adults with the problem.Moran has learned his own coping strategies. At meetings with officials and colleagues he may not take a note “but I remember everything”. [ ‘I went through a lot of my life feeling like I was stupid’: Living with dyslexiaOpens in new window ]He points to a Dáil debate on flooding after he had answered questions to more than 20 TDs. Then ceann comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl said, “‘you’re the first minister ever to come into the House that I’ve seen write nothing down, answer everyone and get nothing wrong.’”Moran praises staff, officials and colleagues who have helped him through his years in the Dáil. “Without them I wouldn’t survive.”His habit is to practise speeches out loud before delivering them. His officials help him, cutting department-supplied speeches into lines. He praises his wife, Michelle Fagg, a special needs teacher who “has been front and centre in getting me where I am today”, and his sons Jamie and John. “My wife, I pity her. She’d be at home and I’d be reading them out [speeches and parliamentary replies] in front of her.”In government the first time he relied most on then minister for finance Paschal Donohoe, who was “absolutely brilliant”. He “knew my difficulties” and sometimes would take his oral questions for him when he struggled with replies in a way nobody noticed.Minister of State at the OPW Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage James Browne. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times He lost his seat in 2020 and on re-election in 2024 he wanted to return to the OPW.Moran started hiding his own reading difficulties at national school in Athlone. “I could avoid the problem by creating a row. I didn’t get the name ‘Boxer’ for nothing.” That nickname was acquired after he hit another boy while playing football. He could not get the ball from him “and I got vexed and hit him”. The coach said “we’ve a boxer in the making” and the name stuck.Secondary school proved a disaster. “I wasn’t in the school three or four weeks when it all started erupting in rows and I ended up getting suspended for hitting a lad in the corridors and tackling a teacher.”[ Leaving Cert students with dyslexia should get ‘extra 10 minutes per hour in exams’Opens in new window ]He began working on building sites and later built a taxi business before being introduced to politics by his best friend’s father.Now Moran is on a mission to raise awareness about dyslexia.“I want to highlight it – not for Boxer, I want nobody feeling sorry for me – but in the sense of if I can do it, you can do it too.”IN THIS SECTION