Dr. Aodhán Mac Cormaic:

It is minimal in terms of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. We work with and have had discussions over the past year with the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation regarding employment in general and the work of Údarás na Gaeltachta with whom we have regular contacts. Údarás has agreements between itself, Enterprise Ireland and the IDA on how they manage their affairs. There are certainly contacts there between the organisations.

We have to equip young people with the skills of today rather than the skills of the past.

We have a number of programmes such as the TechSpace programme in Irish language youth organisations and schools. We started in the Gaeltacht with this a number of years ago and we are rolling it out all across the country this year. It equips young people with technological and digital skills that they can use in the future and enhance their employment prospects.

The other thing about Irish language speakers in general is that we have so many jobs in the public service. There is a huge shortage on the panel the Public Appointments Service seeks to establish of Irish language speakers to work in the public service, and it is the same in the EU with the end of the derogation on the use of Irish by the end of 2021. There are great employment opportunities for people with the Irish language, and I am speaking, in particular, about people who are Gaeltacht-based. If a person can read and write, has a good approach and can speak Irish, there should be no reason he or she should not get a job in the public service, either at home in Ireland or in the European institutions.