Fianna Fáil's education spokesperson Thomas Byrne has said it's "certainly looking like" this year's Leaving Cert exams will be called off.
He has also criticised the Department of Education for not keeping opposition parties informed about the situation.
There have been increasing calls for clarity on the plan for the state exams, which are currently scheduled to begin on July 29th.
No decision on the exams was announced following a meeting between education officials and student, parent, teacher and school leadership groups yesterday.
The Department of Education said the group considered the practicalities of holding the exams and "discussed alternative assessment models".
Meanwhile, an online petition calling for the exams to be cancelled has been signed by over 25,000 people.
Fianna Fáil's Thomas Byrne publicly called for the cancellation of the exams last week.
He told Newstalk Breakfast this morning that it 'certainly looks like' the exams aren't going ahead, but explained that opposition TDs aren't being updated on the situation by the Department of Education.
Deputy Byrne said: “When the announcement was made on Good Friday that it would go ahead in mid-summer, I wrote to the Minister on Easter Monday asking him for the public health advice.
“I’ve had no reply to that, and that’s a fundamental question."
Deputy Byrne said opposition TDs have not been kept informed of the situation by the Department of Education - saying that's unlike the approach being taken by other government departments during the crisis.
He claimed it appears to be a department "that’s not sure of its ground".
He observed: “I just cannot understand what has happened in the Department of Education over the past month or so in relation to the Leaving Cert.
“The Department of Education doesn’t appear to me, at least on the surface, that they’ve had the imagination to try to deal with this.
"Pretty much every other country in the western world has abandoned final exams in schools."
On the prospect of predictive grading or other assessments - ideas that been objected to by teachers in the past - Deputy Byrne said the pandemic has upended normal life, and that a lot of things that have previously been "bitterly resisted" across various walks of life have had to be reconsidered.
