Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The plan we are working on is to have the leaving certificate examinations this year. They have been postponed. I take the points on pressure and anxiety. That is why I stated earlier that central to any decision will be the well-being and health, including mental health, of every single one of the 61,000 young people in this year's leaving certificate class. That is why we are putting the support systems in place.

There is, however, international evidence of different countries doing different things. We are monitoring the different practices. Central to every decision we have made since the pandemic became a massive issue is ensuring we will be guided by public health officials. I am informing myself, be it through direct contact with Dr. Tony Holohan or any other health expert, including, as recently as today, Dr. Mike Ryan from the World Health Organization. I had a 15-minute conversation with Dr. Ryan because I am taking this seriously. I am getting the same emails as the Deputy in respect of the pressure young people are under. However, I am also getting emails and messages from young people who are studying hard, doing the online courses and using technology with innovative teachers who are staying in touch with them. This is different. I do not have time to deal with every point the Deputy made and I do not believe it would be fair to negate every single one of them. Let me deal with the first, however. The Deputy is saying that because leaving certificate students have lost a number of weeks of classroom teaching, we should cancel the leaving certificate examinations. That same argument could be made for the 2021 class. They are also losing out on class time. These are the scenarios we are working on, but central to any decision will be the health and well-being of the students. We will work with the advisory group. It is the advisory group that has to examine the practicalities and health advice and determine whether what is proposed can work. That is what we will work through over the next couple of weeks.

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