Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Just to go back to what the Deputy mentioned earlier, NPHET has agreed to publish the minutes of its meetings and its advice to Government is already published.

In terms of the expert advisory group, that is not advice that I ever see and it is not in my possession. There may or may not be reasons it can or cannot publish it. The CMO is the best person to answer that question.

There was a good debate on the leaving certificate in the Chamber last week, and the vast majority of Members who spoke from most parties, from what I have been informed, spoke in favour of the decision to continue with the leaving certificate. The plan to do exactly that is being developed at the moment by the Department of Education and Skills, with a view to the exams starting on 29 July. The thinking behind that is that the alternative, that is, predictive marking, raises all sorts of difficulties. Some students are concerned that their teachers might not give them a grade they believe is fair. It was suggested that results could be based on mock exams, but students did not realise those exams would be the basis for working out their results. There are major difficulties with predictive marking. It is not impossible, but if it were done we would be dealing with a raft of issues.

See this speech in context