rocker cover gasket leaking oil into spark plugs

[Redd]

Hi all, i have a lady friend who is in a bit of bother with her car, i wonder if you guys could confirm or deny what the garage is telling her.

She has a 2002 petrol 1.2 polo.
She is in the UK and needs to drive the car back to ireland in the coming days. so we would like to do enough to get the car to the ferry, which is prob about 200 miles.

okay so, problem number 1 is that there is a hole in the exhaust somewhere in the engine bay. i dont see this as much of an issue other than it will be a bit noisey and maybe down on power. still driveable though.

The second, more serious problem is that the garage told her that there is oil leaking into the spark plug wells. this is causing the engine to misfire etc. = bad.
i looked into fixing this on another car but never went through with it, that was a toyota and the thing to do was to replace the rocker cover gasket.

However. they are telling her that because he car has a timing chain, it is more difficult to remove the rocker cover, and its going to cost her 800 pounds in labor.
Which to my mind sounds like the price of a new second hand car.

is this true, is it a complex problem to solve, oil leaking into the spark plug wells?
any and all advice appreciated, thanks kindly for reading.

redd .