Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wanted to come back in on a couple of questions. Does Professor Hyland think we are better off making the decision on the Irish language assessment? Not us, because we are not making the decision. Could it be made after we have done this work and seen what the NCCA comes up with as a whole on leaving certificate reform or even a citizens' assembly? Even Dr. Hyland's suggestions and those from the group of 12 are based on the current model. I take on the board Dr. Looney's comments that it might be just more of the same and recreate disadvantage and this social order we know has huge problems.

I have just come from visiting Traveller halting sites yesterday. That is the very pointy edge and I would hate to think that coming out of this process that we do not really acknowledge that. We have said we do not want to lose the changes that have been made over the past couple of years for those who are disadvantaged and have seen a change. Not losing that has to be part of this report. How do we hold on to that, while still acknowledging some of the challenges teachers have with the assessment model put in place for it?

We have not looked at leaving certificate applied that much. Significant reform could really take much from the leaving certificate applied model. I have not even considered it. Maybe we do not need to reinvent the wheel. The lottery has not really taken off. Probably the best way to change things fundamentally is to change that social set up, but is there a midway point which might have more support? It could include some form of meritocracy, even though I do not agree with that either because, fundamentally, there is no such thing. There are a million questions there.