A high Court judge has granted an appeal by the Minister for Education against a decision of the Information Commissioner that three newspapers - the Sunday Times, Kerryman and Sunday Tribune - should be given the records of how individual schools performed in the 1998 Leaving Certificate.
Mr Justice O Caoimh yesterday found that the commissioner had erred in law in his construction and/or application of Section 53 of the 1998 Education Act, which the Minister had relied on to refuse the papers access to the information.
Section 53 states, notwithstanding any other legislation, that the Minister "may refuse access to any information which would enable the compilation of information (not otherwise available to the general public) in relation to the comparative performance of schools in respect of academic achievement [of its students]" or "comparative overall results . .. of students in different schools".
The Minister contended that disclosure of the Leaving Certificate results would be "highly counter-productive" for the educational system. The Minister insisted that compilation of "league tables" of schools, based on results, was not in the public interest of this State.
The judge said he wanted to stress that the policy of refusing access to this information was one that had been laid down by the Oireachtas.
No orders were made arising out of yesterday's decision but the matter will come up again on October 1st when the issue of orders to be made, and costs, will be decided.