Problems with the marking of this year's English, French, Spanish, Irish and Accounting Leaving Certificate examinations led to the complete re-marking and rechecking of hundreds of scripts and oral exam tapes.
In an unprecedented move, the Minister for Education, Mr Martin, has published details of upgrades for several hundred candidates "which were not appealed but which became necessary due to errors discovered during the appeals process".
He said this was part of his "absolute commitment to transparency" and "should act as an assurance to candidates that all mistakes are acted upon".
The marking of the honours English paper, in particular, has caused considerable controversy this year. Here the appeal examiners upgraded 365 out of 2,801 scripts which had been appealed, 52 of them by 15 per cent or more.
One examiner's 220 scripts were completely re-marked, because of the "number and nature" of the successful appeals arising from them. Of these, 15 were upgraded; none of these 15 students had appealed.
Mr Martin has asked for a "comprehensive report" on the outcome of the exams and appeal process in this year's honours English from the chief examiner in that subject. This will be published and circulated to schools by the end of next month.
In Irish about 10 per cent of oral exams were taped in order to monitor the standard of marking. This monitoring process established that extra marks were warranted in oral exams marked by 10 examiners. However, due to a processing error the candidates affected were not credited with the higher marks.
After further scrutiny during the appeal process, 68 honours students and 124 pass students who had not appealed had their Irish oral results upgraded.
In French "the Department had a concern about the level of error" in one examiner's marking. This examiner's 268 scripts were fully re-marked, resulting in 15 upgrades to candidates who had not appealed.
The appeal process in accounting had indicated "a possible departure by one examiner from the marking scheme in the marking of some questions". This error, which had surfaced late in the process, has led to a full re-marking of this examiner's 279 scripts, and resulting upgrades will be notified to candidates shortly.
In Spanish there was a problem in one school where marks were incorrectly recorded for the oral exam, and 17 students have been upgraded as a result.
Mr Martin also announced his intention to set up an expert group to advise him on examinations policy. However, he also paid tribute to the 2,800 written examiners and 1,200 to 1,300 oral examiners, and emphasised that 97 per cent of the 65,000 students who entered the exam had not appealed.
Mr Neil Molloy, spokesman for the National Forum for Teachers and Parents, the group formed to highlight inconsistencies in the English paper, said the results of the appeals process had "established our position that independent rechecks are required because the present recheck system has failed to correct the inconsistencies".
He said one of the main problems was the low level of payments to examiners. "In order to do justice to the intellectual content of 20- to 25-page English Leaving Cert papers, you require two hours to mark each paper. At the present level of payment, that works out at around £4.50 per hour, or £3 after tax, about the same as you get for stacking supermarket shelves."