The Higher Education Minister said his ‘heart goes out’ to students who missed out on third-level courses due to a lottery allocation system.

At Donahies Community School, students gathered in huddles to open the envelopes which revealed how they performed in the exams.

Patrick O’Donovan also said the statistics for this year’s Leaving Cert are ‘quite positive’.

More than 56,000 applicants were given an offer of a college place on Wednesday.

There were a total of 83,543 applicants to the Central Applications Office this year.

Many students at Donahies Community School were thrilled with their results.

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