The Government's decision that students will not have choice this year for their leaving certificate is appalling. It is a massive mistake not to allow a hybrid or blended model and not to give a choice to students between traditional exams and calculated grades. Furthermore, the way in which this decision was communicated was equally awful. It was cynically leaked to the media late last night. Stressed-out students who had waited for months for the Government to make a decision found out through social media or from a WhatsApp message that the die had been cast. An incredible level of disrespect has been shown to these young people. Their voices have been ignored and set aside. The Government has failed fundamentally to understand the level of disruption they have been subjected to. Fairness is the victim in all of this.

Students have been coherently calling for choice and for a blended approach because it makes sense and because it is fair. This year's leaving certificate students have had their entire senior cycle, both fifth year and sixth year, disrupted by Covid-19. They have had to overcome massive academic challenges and that is before we even consider the incredible pressure on their mental health. Students faced two months of full closures last year and had out-of-class education, which is not comparable to in-classroom learning. Many struggled with a lack of devices and WiFi connection issues. On top of all that, they had the stress of living through a global pandemic.

They were high levels of absences for students and teachers because of self-isolation and infection, which has had a massive impact. To this day, it is having an impact in the classroom. The Irish Second–Level Students Union, ISSU, surveyed more than 40,000 students and almost half of them reported that they had missed between one and three classes per day on average. That disruption continues. There have been huge problems with substitute teacher cover. In some schools, mock exams have been pushed back because the students are far behind.

None of this should be swept under the carpet. Students want choice. That is what happened last year. A huge number of students, when given the choice, chose to sit the traditional exam but they also had the calculated grades. Covid has affected different schools, different students and different teachers in different subjects in very different ways. Additional options within a paper do not fairly compensate for all of that. It is obvious that what we need here is a choice that affords students the option of a written exam or calculated grades. None of this is plain sailing. There are challenges but I do not accept that any of them are insurmountable. Is cinneadh uafásach é leanúint ar aghaidh le hardteistiméireacht traidisiúnta. Cuireadh isteach go mór ar mhic léinn le dhá bhliain anuas. Teastaíonn rogha uathu. Teastaíonn ardteistiméireacht hibrid uathu. The Government has made the wrong call and I am asking the Taoiseach - in fact, I am appealing to him - on behalf of every leaving certificate student to do the fair thing, which is to give students choice.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Last week, I was asked similar questions on this and the most pressing demand, correctly, from Members of the Opposition and generally was for clarity and certainty for students as early as possible. Students were uppermost and of primary concern for Government in reaching its decision.

The Minister, in her engagement with students and indeed with parents, teachers, school management bodies and others, was asked primarily by students to deal with and respond to four issues. One was the need for clarity and certainty. The second was greater choice within the written, oral and practical examinations. The third was grade inflation in order that the students of 2022 would not be disadvantaged compared to those who sat the leaving certificate in 2021 and the fourth was accredited grades. They wanted that option between accredited grades and a written leaving certificate exam.

I acknowledge it has been a very challenging year for students, with Covid-19 and its impact on the learning environment. One of the biggest challenges this year to an accredited grades system was that it could not have been applied as fairly as it was last year, because 25% of the students did not do the junior certificate and their data would not have been available for an accredited grades alternative. I have not seen anybody put forward a meaningful alternative to that. This is important because we would be developing an alternative system that would not use the students' own data, which was used last year, which is very important for comparability and standardisation.

The Minister has now opted to give very wide choice in both the written examinations, to such an extent that most papers will have their content cut by one third. Students should look to the paper of 2021 as a guide and full details of the syllabus and so on will be published in the coming days by the State Examinations Commission.

Instead of having to answer all ten questions on each mathematics paper, candidates will only have to answer six. With regard to the additional choice through additional questions on the biology paper, candidates only have to answer eight questions instead of 11 and furthermore, can focus on a reduced range of mandatory activities. In English paper 1, candidates will have to answer only half the number of comprehension questions as would have been the case and in English paper 2, they only have to answer on any two sections, instead of on all three, which is a reduction of one third.

This represents a dramatic widening of choice compared to that of those who sat in 2019 or 2018. People should not understate the significance of the adjustments being made to the paper and the oral and practical examinations. Then one had the accredited grades. Ní raibh aon rogha ag an Rialtas, i ndáiríre. Bhí córas eile ó thaobh accredited grades dodhéanta agus ní bheadh sé féaráilte do na mic léinn go háirithe. It would not have been fair to the students, primarily, to have pursued the accredited grades option.

I remember here last year everybody was very angry about the concept or prospect of historic profiling of schools as a basis for an accredited grades system. Collectively, it was taken out of such a system. It is challenging times, without question, in terms of Covid-19, but we have given certainty and clarity as early as we possibly could and much earlier than last year, in line with what people were asking us to do then.

What students have asked for and a point on which they have been consistent was choice, which meant a choice between a traditional exam in whatever form and calculated grades. That was deemed appropriate and necessary last year because of the Covid disruption and the truth is that this year's leaving certificate students have been similarly disrupted. There has been significant disruption to the learning of fifth-year and sixth-year students.

If the Taoiseach listened to what students were telling him, he would be left in no doubt that when they asked the Minister for choice, that is what they meant. Yes, they wanted clarity. They wanted a clear expression from Government that they had been heard and that fairness would guide the decision of Government. Nothing the Taoiseach has said to me explains away the fact that he has failed to give that choice to our students.

I reiterate that students have been through an incredible disruption. This has had an effect, as the Taoiseach conceded, on their learning.

The time is up.

It has also had a deep effect on so many of them personally. They have asked the Government to simply be as fair with them this year as it was with students last year. I appeal to the Taoiseach again. This is the wrong decision and I invite the Taoiseach and the Minister to reverse it in the interests of those students.

The Minister met the students on quite a number of occasions and engaged with them. There were four requests. I have gone through the four. The Minister has been able to respond positively to three of those four requests. On the fourth, which relates to accredited grades, that simply was not possible.

I explained to Deputy McDonald, as she knows well, that there is a huge challenge to the accredited grades option because of the fact that 25% of this year's leaving certificate-----

There are options.

Deputy McDonald did not spell them out. I have not heard them from her in three weeks.

The Minister has received them.

Deputy McDonald keeps pointing-----

Deputy Ó Laoghaire has written to the Minister.

Deputy McDonald keeps pointing to her colleague.

Deputy Ó Laoghaire is our spokesperson on education.

The Minister has received them.

Please.

I did not interrupt. The bottom line is I have not got a coherent cogent alternative from Deputy McDonald-----

There are assessment tools that are used in the North.

-----in the past three weeks in relation to that core point.

The Minister has them.

I accept what-----

But the Taoiseach is not the Minister for Education.

I accept what people said-----

The Minister for Education has the options.

-----when the issue was raised in the House in the past while. The point I am making is that there is a huge issue there. People do not want historic profiling; in other words, that results would be based on those of previous students in schools. Nobody wants that. That was the collective view here.

That is correct.

As a result, there is a real challenge in terms of the 25%.

I thank the Taoiseach. The time is up now.

It could not have been done as fairly as it was done last year. That is the point.

It is done elsewhere.

Every other European jurisdiction, from what I know, and the UK are going back to the pre-pandemic assessment approaches that they had.

The time is up, please.

Assessment tools.

They are gone back to their pre-Covid assessment tools.

They are given a choice.

We are not out of line with what is happening across Europe and the United Kingdom.

The Taoiseach is out of line with fairness.