Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

It is widely accepted that the participation rate of 15 year old students is within 0.5% of the total numbers. Clarification on this question was sought from the Central Statistics Office and the Taoiseach answered a question on it last week when he stated: "It should be borne in mind that the figures for persons aged 15 years may be affected by the fact that this age was used in a filter question on the census questionnaire, resulting in a possible over-statement of the number of 15 year olds who have ceased education". The CSO provided this information to the Taoiseach stating it was not a straightforward question to 15 year old people about their standard of education and whether they were still in school. The question was to the effect that if they were under age 15 they should skip to number 34 on the next page, and the CSO has said that a higher number than expected skipped the entire question on education. It is widely accepted that we could not depend on that figure because of the nature of the way in which that question was put. It was a filtering question rather than a direct question put to 15 year old people. All of the evidence the Department has, and on international surveys, shows that our participation rates and school completion rates for 15 year old students are much higher than most of the European average, as I have already identified.

See this speech in context