"THE Law Society has reinstated entrance examination exemptions for the society's law school for law graduates of the Republic's universities.
However, the decision will only benefit 1996 graduates, and undergraduates who commenced their studies in the academic year 1995/1996 or earlier.
Students who enter university in following academic years will have to sit the entrance examination.
The decision is subject to students getting their degree within a period not greater than one year longer than the normal number of years for taking the degree.
The president of the Union of Students of Ireland, Mr Coleman Byrne, welcomed the decision.
The law degrees which qualify are from TCD, UCC, UCD, UCG, and University of Limerick. The decision does not affect law students of Queen's University, Belfast, who will have to do the entrance exam.
It had been expected that the education committee of the society would only make a decision yesterday on this year's law graduates and would wait until the autumn before considering the position of undergraduates.
The terms of the society's decision will be given to the High Court on Monday, when the matter will be mentioned before Mr Justice McCracken.
Earlier this month, Mr McCracken found against 811 law undergraduates who were challenging the decision of the Law Society to end the exemption.
However, Mr Justice McCracken did say that the undergraduates' position constituted "exceptional circumstances" under the society's regulations and that exemptions could be allowed in their situation.
Mr Justice McCracken found that it would be unlawful for him to direct the society to re-impose the exemptions under the regulation under which they had operated.
However, he pointed out that Regulation 30 gave the society the power to grant exemptions in "exceptional circumstances".
The July hearing followed a case taken by law graduates from Queen's University, Belfast, who had to take the entrance examination and claimed discrimination.
The court found that the regulation under which the exemptions were being granted was invalid. The society subsequently decided, in December, 1995, that it would not have any system of exemptions.
