Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House on behalf of the Minister for Education. My question relates to the inconsistencies that have arisen in respect of leaving certificate 2023. I am sure she has heard the reports on the radio and perhaps she herself has been contacted about this. Students in the area I represent who are sitting the leaving certificate or junior certificate were very upset and a great deal of stress and pain was caused to students by the lack of consistency. Eight or ten years ago, there was always a similar thread running through the questions, but this time, the way the questions were phrased gave people an awful shock and it took them a while to understand what was being asked of them.

I was contacted by one strong student who sent me a text message to ask whether there was any hope of bringing the State Examinations Commission before a committee, for example, to hold it to task. That was how upset the student was about it. I am not asking that the questions be made easier or anything like that, but it was unfair, not least for students who had never previously sat a State exam. For the junior certificate students who are sitting exams this year, these are their first State exams and they will take the leaving certificate in two or three years' time.

What is going to happen? Will the bell curve be reconsidered in the correcting of the papers? I would like to get a commitment from the Department that there will be consistency and that common sense will prevail. This has put so much strain on students. Many of them were upset for the entire weekend. It is not right, in the middle of State exams, that students should be so upset, and it is not just them but also their families.