Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The next item on the agenda is engagement with officials from the State Examinations Commission and the Department of Education and Skills.

Before we begin, I remind members, witnesses and persons in the Public Gallery to switch their phones to airplane mode please.

I welcome, from the State Examinations Commission, Mr. Aidan Farrell, chief executive officer and Dr. Tim Desmond, acting head of the examinations and assessment division. Ms Rita Sexton, assistant principal officer, is from the Department of Education and Skills. I thank them for appearing before us.

The witnesses have been invited here today to discuss petition No. P000013/17 from Ms Tara O'Sullivan on how to make the new English junior certificate examination fairer by adding 30 extra minutes. Ms O'Sullivan is requesting that the Department of Education look at the possibility of extending the length of time of the English paper for the junior certificate by 30 minutes to allow students enough time to complete the paper.

Before we commence, in accordance with procedure, I am required to read the following. By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against either a person outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I remind our guests, as we indicated in the committee's invitation, the presentation should be no more than five to ten minutes duration. I am proposing that, rather than read out the submission verbatim, because all of the members have received the submission, if the witnesses were in a position to summarise it in five minutes or so then we can have a question and answer session on the nature of the submission. If that is okay, I will call Mr. Farrell to open the proceedings.