The Minister met the students on quite a number of occasions and engaged with them. There were four requests. I have gone through the four. The Minister has been able to respond positively to three of those four requests. On the fourth, which relates to accredited grades, that simply was not possible. I explained to Deputy McDonald, as she knows well, that there is a huge challenge to the accredited grades option because of the fact that 25% of this year's leaving certificate-----

Deputy McDonald did not spell them out. I have not heard them from her in three weeks.

Deputy McDonald keeps pointing-----

Deputy McDonald keeps pointing to her colleague.

I did not interrupt. The bottom line is I have not got a coherent cogent alternative from Deputy McDonald-----

-----in the past three weeks in relation to that core point.

I accept what-----

I accept what people said-----

-----when the issue was raised in the House in the past while. The point I am making is that there is a huge issue there. People do not want historic profiling; in other words, that results would be based on those of previous students in schools. Nobody wants that. That was the collective view here.

As a result, there is a real challenge in terms of the 25%.

It could not have been done as fairly as it was done last year. That is the point.

Every other European jurisdiction, from what I know, and the UK are going back to the pre-pandemic assessment approaches that they had.

They are gone back to their pre-Covid assessment tools.

We are not out of line with what is happening across Europe and the United Kingdom.

First, it is about that very point of fairness. If one had proceeded on historic profiling to get an accredited grades system, that would have disadvantaged those disadvantaged students even more than is the case now. Students were very concerned about a number of things. One was grade inflation and that there would be a comparison with last year's results and outcomes in terms of grade inflation last year. The Minister has met that concern. Through the marking scheme and the standardisation that will apply here, t…

First, I acknowledge the reports of the ombudsman and the special rapporteur in terms of their conclusions and observations in respect of children and students from certain backgrounds without access to technology or other factors. The impact the pandemic had on them was particularly profound. Not all students do the leaving certificate applied but for the cohort doing the leaving certificate applied, the scaling factor applied to the written papers, for example, was increased from 1.5 to 1.25, so in all papers tha…

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. As he correctly said, in recognition of the efforts of the general public, volunteers and, indeed, all workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and in remembrance of people who lost their lives due to Covid-19, the Government announced last week a once-off public holiday that will take place on Friday, 18 March this year, and a new annual public holiday from 2023 in celebration of St. Brigid's day. The Government also announced the Covid-19 recognition payment for front-line p…

I appreciate where the Deputy is coming from. Ability West does exceptional work. It is a broad-based organisation, covering a range of services, including day, respite, residential, outreach and multidisciplinary support services, for both children and adults with intellectual disabilities. That is acknowledged. The challenge facing Government is the difficulty in drawing clear demarcation lines for this. Fundamentally, it is about front-line healthcare workers, who were continually exposed, on multiple occasions,…

I thank Deputy Joan Collins for raising the issue and am glad that the particular family's situation has been resolved, with DCC now facilitating the purchase of the house. I think the Deputy said there were two children with special needs in the house. Common sense and flexibility should always apply in situations like this. Councils have flexibility. The target this year is for 12,000 social homes, of which 9,000 are to be direct build, between approved social housing bodies and local authorities. I can recall a …

I have not seen the detail of the particular case but what the Deputy read was that the council told the Minister it did not feel it came within the priorities. There is an issue of why it did not feel that was the case. However, it clearly does now.