Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In terms of the monitoring, I want to be very clear. When the inspectorate, whose representatives are more at liberty here to give the detail, visits a school, whether for a subject inspection, a whole-school evaluation, WSC, or whatever type of inspection, the data on exemptions being provided are available to its officials and are then obviously available within the Department. It is important there is oversight of this. I reiterate that this is a substantial body of work undertaken by the schools, but we have moved now to a new model where there is less emphasis on the diagnostic, which I think is a good thing. It is important we move away from that and look at the holistic experience of the child or young person in school and at their ability to access the curriculum and the school. While we are talking today about exemptions, it is very important to say we have 1 million children and young people in our school system, 1.9% of whom avail of an exemption at primary level and approximately 10% of whom access an exemption at post-primary level. These figures are indicative of the excellent work taking place within our schools. For the vast majority of students Irish is a source of significant joy and achievement with many of them, more than 82%, taking it at higher level in the leaving certificate, but there will always be a cohort, whatever their challenge might be in terms of education, for whom the language proves to be a difficulty. It is a small cohort of students, but if it impinges on their ability to access the greater and broader curriculum, we will always have to have this opportunity of exemptions being made available. Again, these exemptions are long-standing in education in terms of the Irish language.