Shane Curley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the response. I understand it is hard in real time to gather data on a current issue, in this case the number of applications. However, there seems to be some dispute and ambiguity as regards what percentage of applications received this year were from previous leaving certificate years and students who had the grades that were increased by, on average, 7.5%. That needs to be taken into account.

It is a stressful time for leaving certificate students. I was a secondary school teacher. We need to reform the leaving certificate. That is a different debate which overlaps with this one. The leaving certificate puts serious pressure on young people. There is then the added stress of potentially being at a disadvantage compared with previous leaving certificate years. We have moved from 70,000 CAO applications last year to 83,000 this year. Those extra students will have a significant advantage in their points. That adds enormous pressure. Will there be an increase in the number of college places provided to students this year to alleviate the damage done by the reduction in points increases? I understand we need to level this out and it cannot be done as a cliff edge and needs to be done gradually. I appreciate it is being done in that way. However, we need to be mindful of the fact that we must communicate with students in a timely fashion to allow them to relax a small bit and concentrate on studying for their exams.