Ms Andrea Feeney:

I cannot go back to the decisions that were made at the time the group reported. Conflicting recommendations were being made and it was decided at that stage to make other changes to the scheme that would seek to ensure that students who required access and support arrangements were provided with them. The scheme has changed considerably since the time of that expert advisory group, which was chaired by Professor Áine Hyland. Should we have done things differently at the time? I do not know, to be honest. We can keep going back to that report. It is one we need to consider in the context of the various measures that are being provided and assess the cumulative impact.

We have international expertise on our steering group. There is international research on the impact of additional time, which states that it can put students under greater pressure in the examinations. Perhaps that is not the case for students with learning difficulties but it is for those with other forms of difficulties. They can feel that the additional time they are getting is counterproductive. It can also create fatigue for students. We have had feedback from individual students who were provided with additional time in their examinations. They reported fatigue because of the length of time they spent on the examinations. They did not feel they got a sufficient break between the two examinations and sought an extended timetable to require they sit only one examination per day because they were provided with additional time. Those are the kinds of complex issues through which we need to work. We must consider how to manage all of this.