THE Minister for Education is to face more Dail questions next week over her admission that further mistakes were made in marking last year's Leaving Certificate art exam.
Ms Breathnach confirmed yesterday that two more cases of missing marks have been identified. This follows last month's revelation that craft work from 49 art students had gone missing. Craftwork for all but four of the students remains missing.
The admission, made in the written answer to a Dail question, has prompted calls for a complete recheck of all 11,000 entries in the art exam. Fianna Fail has accused Ms Breathnach of being "less than forthcoming" with information on the affair.
The party's spokesman on education, Mr Micheal Martin, has tabled questions asking how much the Minister knew about the initial investigation carried out by her Department before Christmas.
He also wants Ms Breathnach to explain how one further upgrade came to be made in the past few weeks. The Minister has said this was the result of "incorrect processing of an appeal".
Ms Breathnach repeated yesterday that all matters relating to the mistakes would be dealt with in an independent inquiry being conducted by Price Waterhouse. This, she said, would be published in the near future.
Speaking on RTE, the Minister promised to introduce a "new basis" for the appeal system for all Leaving Cert subjects.
In all, 48 upgrades have been awarded to students from 30 schools. Fourteen of these were for students in Ursuline College, Sligo, and four were for students in Navan Vocational School, Co Meath. Our Lady's, Drogheda, and Gorey community schools each received two upgrades.
Mr Martin, who described the operation of the art exam as a "fiasco", said the Minister had been "less than forthcoming" with information. On Tuesday the Minister had refused to answer "simple questions" on the issue in the Dail.
The Progressive Democrats spokesman on education, Ms Helen Keogh, said the Minister had a duty to restore confidence in the exam system. "As a direct result of these blunders by the Minister's Department, a number of students are having to repeat the Leaving Cert this year, at huge personal cost," she said.
The National Youth Council of Ireland called on the Minister to pay "suitable compensation" to students who had missed out on third level places because of the errors.
In her written Dail reply Ms Breathnach said the Department of Education carried out "an investigation of the marks" of the 11,000 art candidates between December 15th and 20th last year. Mr Martin said he found it difficult to accept that a thorough investigation could have been carried out in so short a time. He also asked why the Minister did not make a public statement at the time.
The investigation was undertaken following the discovery that one student from Ursuline College had not been marked correctly.
On December 12th the exams branch in Athlone informed an assistant secretary, Mr Pat Burke, that students at the Ursuline College had not received credit for craftwork. This information was passed on to the Minister the same day.
