Departmental Staff Dail Éireann — 2020-10-07 ============================================================ Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (LAB), Dublin Bay North With regard to special advisers and the special relationship between the three political leaders at the heart of government, all three individuals knew about the upcoming issue in the leaving certificate a week before it was announced by the Minister for Education and Skills. This information was not shared with the Cabinet. I am quite sure the special advisers attached to the Taoiseach's office knew. While the three party leaders knew, the entirety of the Cabinet did not know. Does the Taoiseach not think the Labour Party's recommendation of having an independent investigation into the entirety of the leaving certificate, including the involvement of the Taoiseach and his advisers, would ensure that we do not have a repeat of the debacle for the leaving certificate class of 2021? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-10-07/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:39+00:00 Sitting date: 2020-10-07