Jim D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh Ms Huws anseo. I believe it was the Welsh who named the Irish gwyddel, fierce angry men, at the time when we were kidnapping people in Wales, St. Patrick et al, and that that is from where the word "Gael" comes.
I note Ms Huws's comments on the plean teanga Gaeilge and the three or seven year term. As I always thought in school that a three year cycle was best, I would support an implementation and review plan as much as I could within that timeframe.
I should stand up for the former Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Dinny McGinley. He has told me that he considers his greatest achievement to be saving the position of An Coimisinéir Teanga. As we do not know what went on internally or anything else about that matter, we will not talk about it.
To address Mr. de Spáinn's point, a statutory figure of 6% is low, but it is a start to the process. The figure is only 1.5% in that august body, the Department of Education and Skills. I want to redress the imbalance.
I was very interested in Ms Huws's statement that a service in the Welsh language was offered rather than just available. That is something we should consider implementing as part of the role of An Coimisinéir Teanga.

I am more interested in the general health of the language. I got a phone call the other day from Donegal. Like Senator Ó Clochartaigh, I had been talking about how the mná tí should get a few bob extra. This guy rang me and said "You'll never get another vote. The Irish language is a waste of time - forget about it." My answer to him was that I never got that many votes anyway, so it would not affect me greatly. Then I went into Bonner's pub in Kincasslagh during the summer. I had been there many years before and I was stunned because all the people at the bar were conversing fluently in English. It stunned me. I could not believe it. That just knocked me out.

We can have all the legal frameworks we like but it is like putting spinach on the school dinners and leaving it there and the spinach might be there but it will never be eaten. We must look on it that way. I am doing a study for the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection on effective Irish in primary schools, because it has reached a crisis point. I would be very interested in that document Ms Huws is sending to Deputy Tóibín. She was talking about leaving Irish in a discrete box. It will not work. This strategy is not working in primary schools either. Without coming up with the result before I have done the investigation, I would like Ms Huws's opinion on this. I know it might be a wee bit outside her role, but I would like her opinions on that. That is the most important thing for me.

I have relatively young children, in their early teens, and they listen to Spin and iRadio, which are music stations. It is amazing that the young disc jockeys on these stations speak a bit of Irish all the time. That is a fabulous way of getting the Irish out among the teenagers. It makes it cool. All these radio stations are all at it now. In fact, I listened to my own local radio station this morning and the disc jockey on their mid-morning music programme was talking half in Irish and half in English. If we could get that sort of thing going it would be worth its weight in gold. Next thing, we would get the retailers and the girls or the men at the checkouts using Irish.