A disability rights campaigner who sat a Junior Cycle maths exam when she was just 11 years old is doing it again this week – for real.Cara Darmody, a 15-year-old girl from Co Tipperary, will sit the Junior Cycle maths exam on Friday.“There is a lot of pressure but I have high expectations of myself. I will just go in there and do my best. Maths is my favourite subject anyway and I really enjoy it,” she said. It will be four years after she got 97 per cent in the paper she took while still in national school in order to raise awareness of the lack of services for children with additional needs.Her two younger brothers, Neil and John, have intellectual disabilities and autism.She also became the youngest person in Ireland to pass Leaving Certificate maths when she did so at age 12.She received the same high score of 97 per cent at ordinary level in that exam.Her campaign raised a total of €82,000 for autism services.In the last 2½ years, she has staged a number of 50-hour protests outside Dáil Éireann and attended more than 50 ministerial meetings.The Government created “Cara’s Fund” in her honour to deal with the assessment-of-needs crisis, and the Ardfinnan resident has managed – so far – to secure more than €37 million for assessments for 10,000 of the 23,000 people on waiting lists.[ Miriam Lord: It’s a strange day in the Dáil when a schoolgirl makes the Government squirm with embarrassment (May 2025)Opens in new window ]In a letter last October, Tánaiste Simon Harris wrote to Cara, confirming that the fund named after her had been doubled from €10 million to €20 million as part of the budget.Cara’s parents Mark and Noelle said they had been worrying for Cara before the exams and were glad they had started.“She doesn’t do pressure, we have been worrying for her!“We are incredibly proud of her but sometimes we are afraid she isn’t getting to be an ordinary 15-year-old. She shouldn’t have to prepare for ministerial meetings to try to secure funding for Government failings but she wants to do it.”