Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

I chair the transitions group which is looking at improving the transition from second level to third level and we have, with agreement, made a range of changes to the leaving certificate, the points system and the broadening of entry into courses, especially in the universities. We will be monitoring and evaluating whether there are peaks in points levels. Where one would expect a curve and there are peaks where institutions fix on certain transition points this will be monitored. If peaks emerge we will seek to address that with the universities. However, the universities, other than in the health care sciences, are not funded on the basis of the number of places per course. They have choices about the number of courses they have and the number of cases on each course. It is only in a small number of courses, such as medicine, that there is a number of funded cases but yes, we will be evaluating the information.