John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is quite a lot to digest in the Minister's response and I am grateful for the detail into which she went in such a short period. I take on board, as everybody does, that faced with an unprecedented set of circumstances her Department moved quickly and came up with a system that has attempted, successfully for the most part, clearly, in dealing with the challenges faced by students. It is worthy of repetition and we do not want to lose sight of that.

The Minister is right to emphasise, and we all knew it as public representatives at the time, that this was student-led. As there is a movement at the moment within the present sixth years regarding how they will be treated next year, there are some lessons to be learned from here as well.

In the short time the Minister has left perhaps she could give us some details on what my colleague said about the appeals process. Given the closing time was yesterday, has she any idea yet on the nature and number of the appeals or what kind of cohort of school or schools they are coming from? That is an interesting finding with regard to the so-called non-State schools, that is, the grind schools. It is a sobering fact, and she presented it as such. It is something that parents may bear in mind as they go forward because the success of this depended completely on objectivity as much as possible. There are, however, some questions to be answered. I look forward to the Minister's second response on this and perhaps some further correspondence on it.

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