Ms Martina Mannion:

The figures we are working off on post-primary education state that there were 33,000 exemptions in the 2017-18 school year out of a school population of 357,000, which works out at approximately 9.4%. In the school year 2021-22, the number of exemptions was at 41,000 out of a school population of 391,000, which equals approximately 10.5% of this population. Those figures show to us the difference being between 9% and 10%. Between the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, we are looking at figures of 9.4%, 9.4%, 9.9% and 10.5%. We are talking about that being the evidence across the post-primary system.