Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The parties had all been working collectively. The Ministers, Deputies Harris and Foley, were working on sorting out the issue and getting to the stage where we had final detail on the estimated numbers, what the solution would be and how we would manage this. We wanted to get that right and we will get it right. The real issue here is those students. The American company is reviewing and checking the code. The Deputy is right that the characters are not the important thing. The fact that it was a coding error is not the key thing. The key thing is the students. The key thing now is the estimates we have. We will have to wait until we run the full programme on the checked code; it could be something like 6,500 students. From experience, last year some 3,000 students would have been in a similar position where they were due to get an upgrade after an appeals process. No one will know the number until the final coding check is completed and all the other systems are put in place. We can expect that there will be a number of students - no one knows the exact number - but it will be equivalent to the sort of percentage one would expect that was done last year. It may actually be less because they were students who were looking to get up a grade to get to the points that they just missed. It will probably be less but we do not know that until we get the final numbers. They will then be included in the CAO system and will be able to get the course they would have got in the first place. That is guaranteed. That is what the Government is committed to and within a matter of days.

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