Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. It is a great honour to be in a position to work with her. I have known her for a very long time and I am delighted that she is in this Department and particularly at the considerable successes she has had in her short time there. Like others, I feel a debt of gratitude for the way the Minister has handled interactions with politicians, the public and schools and the way she has been able to get people back to school and address the issues surrounding the leaving cert. Her capacity to work with teachers, who are also owed a significant debt of gratitude, bodes well for the future, notwithstanding the normal fractures and fissures that happen from time to time. I will speak on a couple of issues and we will have more time to discuss matters in the future.

The leaving cert has been a success overall, but it has been difficult for some and it would be wrong to suggest it is just the high achievers who have had difficulties. There are people with average results who have also seen their results downgraded. Maybe they have not been as vocal and maybe that is due to the schools or the backgrounds they come from but I have had contact with parents and students from many of the more average schools who have seen their grades downgraded. Some are accepting of it and some are upset but overall it has been a successful outcome.

I have had a number of students in touch who are considering taking the written paper in November and they are now led to believe that whatever result they get from that will override the predicted grade. The Minister is shaking her head, which seems to suggest - and I hope is the case - that they can pick whichever result is the greater at the end of that process. That will shorten my speech even further and I declare that a result. I thank the Minister for making me very popular in many houses, including my own.

There is an issue with school transport in County Clare which has been going on for a while. It relates to the village of Quin and the desire to have a school bus to the secondary school at Tulla. There is an issue around distances but I think if the Department looks at it again, it will establish that it is the appropriate distance and there should be a full-time bus from Quin to the village of Tulla as it is the closest school. There has been a good deal of correspondence with the Department over the past number of years but I hope common sense will prevail and the Minister will bring fresh thinking to that matter on which I will follow up with her again. I will respect the Chair's decision to try to shorten this as much as possible.