Inquiry into English paper controversy to report today

MINISTER FOR Education Batt O’Keeffe will receive the inquiry report on the Leaving Certificate English paper controversy today and will publish it on the department’s website, “when I have had the opportunity to consider its contents”.

Mr O’Keeffe told the Dáil that rescheduling the second English paper for a Saturday would cost more than €1 million but “we still have not received all the cost implications from Bus Éireann and a number of other resources”.

He said during education questions that “none of the documented procedures were carried out correctly by the superintendent” and it appeared that “due diligence was not acted on in this instance”.

But Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said “it’s easy to make the superintendent the fall guy for another systems failure in the [State Examinations] commission or the department.

“We must be the only country in the western world where a problem such as this arises in one exam centre and the entire system is knocked out for every other student sitting their Leaving Certificate. If anything describes the dysfunctional nature of the Minister’s department, it is this.”

Mr O’Keeffe said, however, that “human failing was involved here. It is not my business to make the superintendent a fall guy because the superintendents are employed directly by an independent body – the State Exams Commission – and it is a matter for it to deal with what arises from the failures there.”

The controversy arose after English paper 2 was distributed to students in a Drogheda, Co Louth, school instead of paper 1. The incorrect paper was immediately retrieved, but the exams commission was not notified until 3.55pm.

Questioned about why the department did not hear until 5pm, Mr O’Keeffe explained that “every year there are hoax calls to the commission that some paper has been compromised and an evaluation must be carried out to check to see what exactly has happened.

“In this case, the commission carried out an evaluation and was satisfied from the information available that this paper had been compromised.”

The secretary general was contacted and then the Minister.

Mr O’Keeffe said contingency papers would have been arranged and provided for the more than 2,000 exam centres for the next day, the scheduled sitting date of the paper, had the information about the incorrect paper been given to the exams commission earlier in the day.

Mr Hayes asked why the wrong paper was in the hall in the first place, “given the clear procedures set out for security for superintendents. This is the fundamental question which needs to be asked.”

He also said it was “convenient” that the Minister would not receive the report until the day after it was being considered in the Dáil.

The Minister insisted that the core responsibility of superintendents “is to safeguard the security and integrity of the exam papers”. There were “clear and comprehensive documented procedures to be gone through to ensure the correct paper is distributed for each session”.