Martin defends Schull decision

There was insufficient information available to warrant a re-sitting of the second Leaving Certificate Irish examination, which was seen prematurely by some students at Schull Community College, Co Cork, the Minister for Education and Science, Mr Micheal Martin, told an Oireachtas committee yesterday. His Department was not told of the incident until Saturday, and there were no phone calls until after the examination was over on Monday. At the Committee on Education and Science, the Minister said he was not told of the incident until Sunday afternoon. His inspectors indicated that not alone had students only seen the paper for a few seconds, but that most were so shocked that they were looking at each other rather than the paper.

Yesterday, two students from Schull Community College telephoned radio station County Sound to say that they had pointed out the error to the supervisor within 30 seconds; she promptly collected the paper before anyone had a chance to read it in detail.

Once informed of the situation, the Department had despatched an inspector to interview every student involved. All denied discussing the paper with other students, the Minister said.

Reports that "half the students in Cork" had been made aware of the contents of the paper could not be substantiated and were based on anecdotal evidence, the Minister said on RTE yesterday. His Department was faced with the decision of either going ahead with the exam on Monday or with cancelling it and causing enormous trauma for the 59,000 students. He was confident that he and the Department's top management group had made the right decision. Last night his spokesperson said that if further information became available it would be investigated. "Nobody has phoned us to say that students had seen the paper or had had prior information," he said. "We contacted three Cork schools and all the principals told us that there were unsubstantiated rumours going around and that the Department had made the right decision to go ahead."

The Department has made special arrangements for the students in Mountrath Vocational School, Co Laois, who walked out of Monday morning's Leaving Cert Irish exam, following the deaths of three young people from the area in a car crash at the weekend. Two students who were critically injured were due to sit the Leaving Certificate in the Brigidine Convent Secondary School and Heywood Community School.

The Department has announced that it will consult with the Mountrath school in order to obtain teacher assessments for the candidates who were unable to complete paper 2 in Irish. These assessments will be used in conjunction with the results of paper 1 to determine the students' grades.

Students sat yesterday's papers as normal. Two extra psychologists - in addition to the psychologist already there - have been assigned to the centres affected.