asked the Minister for Education if she will announce a date for publication of this year's leaving certificate results which would be aligned with A-level results publication in the United Kingdom.

In line with standard practice, with which the Deputy will be familiar, it is planned to issue this year's leaving certificate results in the week beginning Monday, 15 August. The Members of the House will no doubt be surprised, in view of all the furore, that the English GCE A-level results are due out the very same week.

I should add that the conversion of the leaving certificate results into computer-readable form is carried out by an outside bureau in a matter of five days and that my Department make the results available for this process to begin before the date of general issue to the schools.

I am extremely pleased and I thank the Minister for that information. After a newspaper article appeared there was some concern in view of the fact that this year English colleges are expecting something like 5,000——

It is 6,000.

——applications from Irish students. Therefore, it seems only reasonable that the two Departments of Education, the local authorities, or whatever authorities are involved on a broad scale in this, should co-operate with one another. I ask the Minister to assure me that the two sets of results, A-level and leaving certificate, will come out within a matter of days of each other so that Irish students will not be disadvantaged in this.

Yes. I am at a loss to understand how the whole campaign — it can hardly be called a campaign — speculation blew up so quickly. I had considered at the time issuing a statement but I knew Question Time was coming up and that it would provide a forum for so clearing. To answer the Deputy's supplementary question, the target date for the issuing of the 1988 leaving certificate results is the week beginning Monday, 15 August. Obviously it will be about Wednesday, 17 August. The target date for the English A-level results is 18 August, so will coincide with the A-levels results in England. It is worth noting that the A-levels examinations in England begin at the beginning of June and end at the end of June. We begin about ten days later. Yet we are able to have our results out at the same time.

Because of the increasing number of third level students in this country who cannot find places in Ireland, have the Government any plans for extending the grant system so that it can be used in English universities on the same basis as in Irish colleges?

No. I can be quite clear that we have at the moment no plans for an extension of the present grant system to England as operating on the Irish scene. Under a European ruling the fees element of English student enrolment is catered for.