Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this issue which, as I am sure the Minister will appreciate, is very much on the minds of the pupils affected by this incident, albeit that it involved only 200 pupils who were largely constituents of my own. Many of the parents have been in copntact with me.

I appreciate that the Minister has called for a report into what happened, and that is as it should be. It is important to establish how this happened to prevent it happening again but my concern is not to apportion blame but to ensure that the 200 pupils, who are primarily boys although some girls were affected, do not suffer as a result of a below par performance which inevitably is what they would have given following such an event happening to them.

I regret I have not so far heard the Minister indicate that she understands and acknowledges the impact on performance this incident has had on pupils who were already exhausted, as they approach the end of the leaving certificate. Many of the pupils involved had a physics examination in the morning and the accountancy examination in the afternoon, and were already over-tired at that stage. They were in the middle of doing what must be the most trying and stressful of examinations. After all these years I still have nightmares that I am doing the leaving certificate Irish poetry examination. I am sure there are very few people who do not have nightmares about the leaving certificate.

As a former teacher I am aware there are two immutable rules that every teacher drums into students facing into the leaving certificate examination. First, before they go in they should have a time management plan and stick to it and, second, before they start writing they should read the entire paper. These students could do neither. Even if they were fully compensated in terms of the time lost, and they were not, they had already lost out on those two important rules that must be in every child's head going into an examination.

Many parents have contacted me to relay their distress and that of the family at what has happened, and I am not sure the Minister fully appreciates how upsetting this incident has been for them. The leaving certificate is the most demanding examination any of us will ever have to do. The entire family is stressed and in a high state of tension during this very difficult time. All of the students affected are bright, higher level students who are hard-working and ambitious and, significantly, they are highly conscious of the importance of the points they need to get from this particular examination. What has happened to them is unforgivable and the only thing the Minister can do now is to assure them that the wrong that has been done to them will be righted in the marking process.

The Minister must direct that the marking scheme will be used to redress the damage done to the prospects of those 200 pupils. It is vital the Minister ensures they will not be penalised as a result of this blunder.

It was a monumental blunder for these students because the leaving certificate is a life-changing examination with no second chances. If this were a nationwide problem, it would have been all over the newspapers and the Minister would have moved to set minds at rest. However, because only a few hundred pupils have been affected, it has been downgraded.

The whole point of having a standardised examination is that everyone is treated the same in so far as that is possible. These pupils were not treated the same. Even from school to school, this problem was dealt with differently. One school was given a mere five minutes to compensate for the disruption, the consequences of which are incalculable. The Minister must give peace of mind to the pupils affected and their parents so they will not have to suffer as a result of a problem not of their making.

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