The SEC spokeswoman said that for context, a total of 70,105 candidates sat Leaving Certificate and Leaving Certificate Applied examinations in 2026, leading to the issue of over 470,000 individual results.

New figures provided by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) show that the 155 2025 Leaving Cert results have been permanently with-held because of cheating and the 155 compares to 71 results permanently withheld by the SEC at the same point in 2024.

Calculated grades and the marking adjustment led to grade inflation during Covid, with attention now on when it will return to pre-pandemic levels.