C oveney recalls childhood stammer struggles

Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has spoken about how he overcame a childhood stammer which once meant he struggled to read aloud.

As a schoolboy, he recalled breaking pencils under his desk in "frustration" at being unable to speak properly in class.

Mr Coveney is one of Ireland's most high-profile politicians, having served for more than two and half years as tánaiste (deputy prime minister).

H e also became a prominent figure on the international stage during the Brexit negotiations.

Minister Coveney discussed his personal experience of dealing with a speech impediment to mark International Stuttering Awareness Day on Saturday.

S peaking to Irish broadcaster RTÉ, he said he wanted to use his position to support other people who struggle to communicate.

"If you've got a stammer or a stutter, there's nowhere to hide. That's the truth, which means it can be quite cruel," he said.

"So that's why I think it's important for people like me, who struggled when I was in school to simply read out loud, who broke pencils under the desk out of frustration because I couldn't get words out; and now it's my job every day to speak to the public.

I t was not the first time that Mr Coveney has discussed his speech impediment.

At a conference in 2014, he told the audience he once suffered from a "significant stutter" and "couldn’t speak properly" as a young boy.

"When I was in school, in English class or in French or Irish class, when it came to reading prose or paragraphs, the teachers simply skipped me, because I took so long to get through sentence by sentence.”

He also revealed the personal significance for him of the song Happy Talk from the musical South Pacific.

"When I was asked in our party gatherings to do my party piece, I would always sing, and that’s the song I sang," he said.

"Because people with a speech impediment can normally sing as badly or as well as anybody else, even though they can’t speak."