Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 377: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Science the number of students registered to take Irish in their leaving certificate examination in each of the past three years; and the number that actually sat the examination over the same period. [16387/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The State Examinations Commission has statutory responsibility for operational matters relating to the certificate examinations, including organising the holding of examinations, making arrangements for the marking of work presented for examination and issuing the results of examinations. In view of this, I have forwarded your query to the State Examinations Commission for direct reply to you.

I wish to inform the Deputy that Statistics from Year 2000 showing the number of candidates who sat the different examinations and the results obtained are available on the State Examinations Commission website. www.examinations.ie/statistics. It should be noted that while Irish is an essential subject which must be studied by all students other than those who have been granted an exemption, there is no obligation on students to sit an examination in the subject. The proportion of candidates who sat Irish in the Leaving Certificate in 2009, 2008 and 2007 was 84.2%, 85.6%, and 86.5% respectively.