Mr. Dalton Tattan:

On the ripple effect, there certainly were some discussions on the issue at a high level between two Departments, particularly during the time when the coding errors were discovered. The difficulty lies in trying to do what the Deputy referred to without having to run a full CAO process. The view we eventually came around to was that it was not possible to do that without a full CAO rerun. The Deputy referred to ripple effects, and those also occur from round one to round two etc.. People may turn down an offer in round one and that offer gets passed on to somebody else in round two, and so on. Trying to rerun the process, therefore, without involving everybody seemed to be impossible to us. The view coming from the higher education wing as well is that what the CAO takes every year are the leaving certificate results, which is effectively what the State Examinations Commission in a normal year-----