Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It does not clarify the situation. No one is saying that there is not a place for the leaving certificate applied. The problem is that due to league tables, certain schools are not offering it to their students because they feel they can shed them to other schools. It is definitely an epidemic in Dublin. Schools are recommending to students to go to a school down the road which offers the leaving certificate applied because it would suit their needs because they are concentrating on the league tables and how they can excel and have that published in the national newspapers. This not fair on students. With respect, I encourage the Department to consider making it compulsory in order to stop that trend because that is where the stigma lies. As it stands, we are allowing schools to not offer that subject and therefore not serve all students equally.