Mr. Donncha Ó Súilleabháin:

I have a couple of comments to make to assist with those questions. We have done various things over the year and we have had various conversation groups. We have our own departmental fáinne and we have networks to support people who want to exchange and engage with one another in Irish in a more informal way. We have found all those things helpful. We do not dwell on the figure of 43 so much. As I said earlier, we do not find that it inhibits our ability to provide services in Irish.

We would like it to be higher but we believe there is a much larger hinterland of people who are happy to engage in Irish at various levels in the Department. We have put much effort into the cultural promotion around the language in that regard.

It is also important for people to have visible role models in the organisation who are clearly comfortable using the Irish language and who have got on very well in their careers. We have several such dynamic people getting ahead in their careers, including many who were only very recently promoted. It is not unusual to see people briefly interact in Irish in a casual way around the Department. That is ultimately how to get more traction, by giving some people who might be holding back a bit the confidence to use Irish. Mentoring and encouragement go with that as well. The new people coming into the organisation are very important in that regard. I take the Deputy's point that it cannot all be about recruitment but there are many new entrants to the Civil Service in recent years because of the increase in recruitment generally. A big job we have to do is to go back over that cadre, many of whom may have been educated to a very advanced level in Irish depending on their qualifications, to ensure we are giving them an opportunity to use the language.

As to the broader debate in the context of legislation, that discussion on the challenge of the targets being discussed will engage all of the Government and the Public Appointments Service.