Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

The State Examinations Commissions has extensive funding. The issue is not really the availability of contingency funding for State examinations but whether they can be held. We really want to hold them. It is really important. What has been the most challenging issue this year? One might think it was getting the teachers to do the job. It was, but not really. The biggest challenges were ensuring the well-being of the students and the uncertainty this horrific pandemic has meant for the decision-making process. The first decision we made was to pull the oral and aural examinations. The second was to move the written examinations back, which turned out not to be possible. We were then faced with a call. We could delay the whole year and the students' transition or we could do something different. Nobody wanted to do this, but it is what we had to do. People want even less to do it again.

We are holding written examinations in the middle of November because the leaving certificate was not cancelled, just postponed. Estimated grades were just an option to which people could opt in. We are running the written examinations in partnership with the schools in three weeks' time and will learn a lot from doing so. We really want to be able to do this properly. We have already announced that there will be more choice in the examinations and we have set this out for students. That is very clear and is included in the guidance on the curriculum. We really have to try to avoid continuously speculating on alternatives and indicate to everyone that we will have to manage this virus while keeping schooling, the examinations system and the transitions going. If we do not, we will cause great stress.

The advice of the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, played a big role in the decision to postpone the examinations. NEPS has also played a big role in advising the system when the schools reopened. Well-being is really important.