Written answers
Tuesday, 14 October 2025
Department of Education and Skills
Education Policy
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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533. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if there is a higher marking criteria for students who take the Junior Cycle Irish T1 exam than the T2 exam. [55455/25]
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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534. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware there appears to be a higher standard of marking for Junior Cycle students taking the Irish T1 exam than those taking the Irish T2 exam; and her views on whether this will influence parent’s decisions to send their children to an Irish medium school or if they will be more likely to attend an English speaking school. [55456/25]
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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535. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware that only 7% of students in Irish medium schools and schools in the Gaeltacht received a distinction in the Junior Cycle Irish exam; and the measures she is taking to improve these numbers. [55457/25]
Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 533, 534 and 535 together.
With effect from 2017, as part of the Framework for Junior Cycle, Junior Cycle provision for Irish in post-primary schools and settings comprises two different curriculum specifications with corresponding different sets of assessments. The T1 (Teanga 1) specification is targeted at students in Irish-medium schools and students in English-medium schools who learn one or more subjects (apart from Irish) through the medium of Irish. The T2 (Teanga 2) specification is targeted at other students in English-medium schools.
In the T1 specification, the language needs of both native speakers of Irish and learners of Irish are considered. The provision of enriched language-learning experiences for all students, particularly those who are native speakers of Irish, is of the utmost importance. These students use the language on a daily basis, at home, in the neighbourhood and in school. Due to their immediate language environment, they have fairly well-developed productive and receptive language skills. This specification aims to develop, enrich and enhance the full range of students’ language skills.
It is expected that the competencies and understandings from this specification will support native Irish speakers to:
- take advantage of opportunities for language use in the community;
- learn through Irish across the curriculum; and
- play an active part in Gaeltacht community life.
In English-medium schools, the English language is the working language of the school and T2 Irish is taught as a subject. Students in English-medium schools are to a large extent dependent on the Irish language classroom as the Irish language community is not always on the doorstep of the classroom.
With regards to achievement at T1 and T2, the provisional Junior Cycle examinations results were published recently by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) for all subjects and are available online at examinations.ie/statistics. In each year since the new Irish specifications were first examined in 2022, the percentage of students who achieved distinction has been slightly higher for students studying the T1 specification than for students studying the T2 specification at an equivalent level.
In the provisional results for the 2025 examinations, 8.8% of the 2,581 candidates who sat T1 higher level Irish and 6.3% of the 95 candidates who sat ordinary level examinations received a distinction result, while 8.3% of the 32,293 candidates who sat T2 higher level and 7.1% of the 23,898 candidates who sat the ordinary level T2 examinations received a distinction.
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