If the Department of Education somehow manages to stage this year's exams, the next ordeal will be getting suitable people to correct the 600,000 scripts written by Leaving Cert students.
While supervising exams mainly involves relatively simple tasks such as distributing exam papers and ensuring students do not copy from each other, marking exams is regarded as a challenging and often tortuous job.
Over 3,000 people are required each year as examiners for the Leaving Cert and while the Teachers' Union of Ireland - at least theoretically - can supply some of these, the rest will have to be recruited by the Department of Education.
Many parents are understandably jittery at this idea. Who will these people be and will they be suitable to mark my child's paper is the question they will be asking.
Department of Education sources at this stage will only say that 1,000 "graduates" will be recruited. One teacher's description this week of these people "coming off the street" will not have settled parents' nerves.
Teachers say only they can correct papers to the proper standard and without them the "integrity" of the exam system will be eroded.
One maths teacher explained that while someone like an actuary could have the technical knowledge to correct a higher-level maths paper, they would not necessarily be used to how students worked.
"When we are correcting a maths paper we pay strict attention to what the student was trying to do, even if they got the wrong answer. Someone who is not used to marking school exams might not appreciate that," he said.
Another teacher said it would be almost impossible for someone from outside the school system to read themselves into the English syllabus in a few days or even a few weeks. However, this pessimistic view was contradicted by Dr Mona O'Moor, head of the education department at Trinity College. She said the exam system allowed students to check their papers when the exam results came out and they could appeal any results they were unhappy with.
"There is a great degree of transparency in the exam system now. Even if graduates are used, maybe the students can make greater use of the appeal system if they are unhappy with the results."
She also pointed out that the Department of Education's marking scheme was quite specific and would be a major asset to anyone seeking to mark papers for the first time. Department sources also say major "checks and balances" are in place for correcting exams. At the top of the hierarchy are the chief examiners in each subject, who are there to guarantee that standards are maintained on a national basis. Below them are a team of "advising examiners" who oversee examiners directly and check samples of their work. If these papers have unusual patterns they have the power to ask examiners to mark the papers again and this happens occasionally.
Advising examiners will be vital to this year's process, as the burden of maintaining standards will fall to them.
Currently any full-time teacher can apply to correct exams. However, it is not part of their teaching contract and the vast body of teachers do not participate.
Many younger teachers with mortgages and other costs are usually keen to take on the work, which pays between £2,000 and £3,000 gross. The number of scripts they are given varies from about 300 to 600.
The teachers enter into a 26-day contract with the Department of Education to correct the exams. This means all scripts must be marked within this period, although in extreme circumstances exceptions are made.
The work involved is described by almost everyone who has done it as tortuous. A higher-level script at Leaving Certificate level can run to 30 pages in some cases and subjects like English and history involve hours of reading.
While examiners are almost exclusively teachers or former teachers, supervisors come from various backgrounds, although the majority would be teachers, according to the Department of Education.
The ASTI is furious that non-teachers with no previous experience in exam halls may be used as supervisors and many are planning to picket the exam centres.
According to Ms Marguerite Bolger, a labour law barrister who has been involved in many cases in the education sector, this picketing is legal because it would be classified as a form of secondary picketing.
As many ASTI members have worked as supervisors for the Department for years, they are entitled to withdraw their labour and picket exam centres if the Department is using alternative individuals, she said. She said the fact that supervision was not part of their teaching contract did not change this.