Mr. Pat Burke:

As soon as an exam takes place - and the big exams take place first - the papers go to Athlone and they are being marked almost while the exam is going on. It is a foot-to-the-floor operation. A certain timescale is allowed for the marking of the exams and, in the interest of safety, it cannot be shortened. The results usually come out in mid-August, as quickly as is humanly possible. My instinct is not to try to put pressure on those timescales because I would be worried that quality might suffer. Immediately after the results come out there is a week when the CAO is executing. We introduced the facility for candidates to come along and look at the marked scripts, which usually takes approximately two weeks from the results coming out. It is probably no harm to allow that two weeks because many of these kids have got their CAO offerings, are quite happy and do not want to see these scripts again in their lives.

However, some kids will want to look at them. All of that happens, which pushes back the timescales. We are hitting September at that stage and then the appeal marking takes place. The problem with the appeal marking is that some courses will be full. I know this from experience in the past. This can be a particular problem with pharmaceutical and medical courses. In other courses, the kids might be a bit late starting, or they will be allowed to change from where they are into another one. I am not saying it is not a problem, but it tends to be a problem in a small enough and limited number of instances. I just do not see where we can make the time savings without sacrificing quality. That is my worry. Third level institutions now have a modular approach. I do not know if that makes it somewhat easier to start a little later.