Ms Deirdre Shanley:

That figure comes out of the overall complement of 6,500. The Deputy is correct, approximately 3% of our overall complement have been identified as being able to provide business services through Irish. As I mentioned, there are many other people within the Department who are growing their skills in Irish through our learning and development supports. The Department is putting a lot of work into improving the level of supports for the learning and development of Irish through both staff development unit supports, such as the refund of fees scheme, and the Gaelchultúr courses that have been put in place on a shared services level for the whole Civil Service through OneLearning.

The Department is always trying to encourage more staff to avail of those opportunities.