Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I will not paint myself into a corner completely but we will certainly look at that.

On leaving certificate students, I am not aware that we have received any complaints but I will check on that. I have been on the record saying that the concept of the leaving certificate itself, the way it is done, and the 100% final three-week exam is not the way forward and should not be happening for children. When something like this happens, it is magnified. If this was 40% or 50% of their exam and they knew they had 40% in the bag, it would take much of the pressure off. That is one of the things. I cannot say one way or the other whether it was unfair. I will check if we had any complaints. It brings us to an area we have looked at in the review of our Act.

There is a disjoint between looking at exam results for children who are 17 years, which we do not have the right to do, whereas the general Ombudsman for public services has the right to look at it for an 18-year-old. These days, most children are 18 when they do the leaving certificate. It is an anomaly that we have identified in our Act whereby 18-year-olds can take a complaint to the general Ombudsman on exam results, whereas a 17-year-old cannot bring it to us.