Dr. Joseph Ryan:

I thank the Deputy for her razor-sharp questions. I fully agree with the points Mr. Miley has made and will not labour them again. In reforming the leaving certificate a number of years ago, we tried to get greater granularity so we would avoid problems. Covid-19 has been the issue here. The unfairness extends, in particular, to students who are presenting with results from previous years. It seems to me that if the situation stays stable, there will have to be some mechanism to accommodate and recognise those issues for a period of time. It will not be perfect, as Mr. Miley said, but it is critical to try to get stability back into the system.

The leaving certificate has highly respected standards. I fully agree with Mr. Miley's point about retaining the leaving certificate as an element in determining places in higher education. For a few high-demand programmes, an extra piece may be required. There is an element of the tail wagging the dog to that.

The Deputy asked about the cross-Border piece. I am conscious of the work the Royal Irish Academy did on higher education futures. That is an all-island piece and, as the Deputy knows, the north west was a big feature of that. The fact that there is that all-island context to our shared island means there is a chance to look at that again. As Mr. Miley rightly said, there is less student traffic than one would have thought between the North and South. Given the situation at the moment, including the impact of Brexit, etc., there are questions around research and collaboration. The dynamic has changed somewhat in that regard. Our registrars have looked at this. They benchmark and it is possible that it is time to look at the issue again in that context.