I will start with a question. In addition to the students who received a lower grade than they should have in this year's leaving certificate, some students received a higher grade. How many?

I am not expecting an exact figure. To be clear, when the Minister says that in addition to the students who received a lower grade some students received a higher grade, she thinks that as many as 6,500 students could have received a higher grade.

Could it be the case that a student who applied for a course was squeezed out of getting that course because students received a higher grade than they should have got? Is that something that could have happened?

I understand that that is the established practice. I want to be clear that I am not in favour of any student who got a higher grade being downgraded but in previous years there would have been a certain number of students who received a higher grade than they should have got. It is not an exact figure but the Minister might be talking about a ballpark figure of 6,500. The point I am making to her is that there must be students who applied for courses and would have got their courses if that error had not been made…

That is not what I am asking the Minister. Perhaps I am not being clear. To be clear, does she accept that it is at least theoretically possible that students who applied for courses and who would have otherwise got the courses have been now squeezed out of those courses because of an error that might affect approximately 6,000 people being upgraded?

I put it to the Minister that it is very possible not for one or two people, or even dozens or scores of people, but potentially for hundreds of people or even more. That is an issue that needs to be debated more but I will park it there for now. It strikes me that it is a standard testing practice, not something done once in a blue moon or regularly. It is a standard practice whereby a sample set of data is taken and run through the system, and then what is got is tested against the expected results. If that were …

I am not seeking to identify anyone.

To be clear, I am not in favour of identifying any individual. The point I am making is that the Department has signed off on an arrangement, and a company signed up to a deal based on that arrangement. My question is whether sample sets of data were used to test results. Surely that would have shown up in the system very quickly.

The clock is running down. I have a final question.

In fairness, this is running down the clock.

Now there is only one minute and 23 seconds left. My final question-----

We are not in a position to say when the final report and full scope of the situation will be clarified, but obviously this is not a situation that can run for months, or even weeks. Will the Minister give a rough idea as to when we are likely to have a result and how quickly the extra university places needed might be made available when we have the results? The Minister with responsibility for further and higher education, research, innovation and science, Deputy Harris, referred to up to 1,000 places the other d…

To clarify, does the Minister accept that once the number of extra places needed is absolutely clear, it will be necessary for them to be found and filled not in a matter of months or weeks but in the matter of days?

Yesterday, the Déise five occupied the Debenhams store in Waterford city in protest at the refusal of KPMG to talk. These workers want real talks unhindered by the introduction of non-union scab labour into the stores or the intervention of gardaí against peaceful protests, which we have seen now in no fewer than three stores during the past five days. The programme for Government raises the possibility of improving workers' rights in liquidation situations, a tacit admission that workers' rights may not currently …

The issue here is the threat to the future of Ulster Bank. We are talking about 2,500 jobs and 88 communities in which the bank is based and in many cases it is the only bank serving those communities. We are also talking about the interests of many thousands of mortgage holders who will fear Ulster Bank being transferred into new hands and those new hands having claws in them in the form of vultures. They will fear what will happen to their mortgages if they fall into arrears or if they have arrangements with the …

The Minister has said he will monitor the matter very carefully, which is good, as we will monitor it very carefully too, as I am sure the workers in Ulster Bank will do as well. The concern here is that a bank that has made much profit through the years has hit a bump in the road and lost €276 million, according to its report for the first six months of this year, because of the Covid-19 crisis. The bank is going to make a short-term decision to put profit above the needs of the workers, mortgage holders and commu…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to restore the eligibility of all persons born in the island of Ireland to Irish citizenship, to extend the eligibility for Irish citizenship to children resident for a period of time in the island of Ireland and related matters, to enhance the eligibility for Irish citizenship for children resident in the island of Ireland. The Irish Nationality and Citizenship (Citizenship for Children) Bill 2020 has two purposes: to restore automatic citizenship f…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

I wish to talk about nursing homes and meat plants. Workers in HSE nursing homes are entitled to sick pay. If they present with Covid symptoms, they can quarantine with a guarantee of full pay. They are under no economic pressure to go to work. Only 20% of nursing homes in the State, however, are HSE nursing homes; the other 80% are privately owned. There is no legal obligation on those employers to provide sick pay schemes. When the chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland, Tadhg Daly, came before the Special Comm…

Yes. I should have swung by the canteen on the way to the Dáil Chamber just now. I could have bought myself a packet of peanuts to hold it up in the air and ask the Taoiseach whether it is what he is going to offer low-paid workers in the budget. There is a recommendation of less than 1% from the Low Pay Commission. We are talking about workers who played a key role in getting this country through the lockdown earlier this year. I would like to hear from the Taoiseach a guarantee that an insulting increase of 1% wi…