Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh míle maith agat.

Go raibh míle maith agat. From my own perspective there has been a very discernible change in the use of Irish, particularly in this Dáil. The establishment of this committee has given an impetus to that. In fairness it has also pushed us as an institution because we have always struggled in terms of our Irish-speaking capacity. Sometimes a little bit of a push is needed to get things going. The change in this Dáil has given us that push. We obviously see more Irish spoken in the Dáil by all of the party leaders and group leaders. There is this committee and also the Joint Committee on Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which is chaired by Deputy Peadar Tóibín. All of these things are giving Irish a greater prominence within the Houses of the Oireachtas.

From my own point of view as the Secretary General of the organisation, my desire is to have an organisation that is very proactive about Irish. We met an Coimisinéir Teanga recently. He spoke to us about the concept of the active offer. The active offer is essentially where facilities and services in Irish are offered to people without them having to be sought out. That is something we have to try to put in place for Irish speakers over the coming years. An Coimisinéir had an interesting anecdote when he came to us. We have five or so ushers who speak Irish and who are capable of giving tours in Irish. It just so happened, by pure fluke, that on the day an Coimisinéir came to Leinster House one of these ushers was on the gate on Kildare Street. He told us that it made all of the difference, because he could speak Irish to this usher and it added to the experience of coming to Leinster House. I would certainly like to see a situation where people who come to Leinster House whose first language is Irish or who are Irish speakers would have the facility to use Irish during their time here, whether they are on tours or dealing with front-line staff. That is something we will be working on over the coming years.