Mr. Alan Mulligan:

The Deputy is right when he says that Kerry is very popular. There is a queue. Many people do not necessarily want to go to a Gaeltacht area. Having said that, I can assure the Deputy that with regard to the panel of people who have done the assessment and attained the level 4 standard, we do not have a problem with Kerry or Galway. In some other areas, we do not have the numbers we want. I mentioned Donegal earlier as one of those.

The organisation would be well aware that there is an assessment in Irish for people want to get on to that panel. A previous one was done by the college, but it was not as stringent as this one. We changed it and adapted it to European levels based on the advice we received from An Coimisinéir Teanga.

This gives me an opportunity to speak on the numbers. There have been improvements. If I recall correctly, An Coimisinéir Teanga said we have 37% who are fluent in Irish. It is down from 42%, but that is not counting like with like because the earlier figure was under the old testing regime which was not as stringent. If we applied that testing regime now we would be up to 52% because we have increased by 11 or 12 points on that. However, as I said, the new testing regime which we have now is more stringent and fit for purpose, to be honest.

The opportunity is there. The missing piece, which we mentioned earlier, is the work we will be doing with Gaelchultúr on a course which will enable our police officers and our Garda staff who wish to transfer to these areas to avail of an opportunity to bring their Irish up to the requisite standard. The advantage of what we are having done at the moment is that they will not have to go to classrooms. Many of them could be living in rural areas or other areas where it is more difficult to do that. This will be online. The Garda College will facilitate that. There will be an opportunity to do that. The point made by the Deputy is very good. When we have the Gaelchultúr courses online, they will give a better opportunity to people who might wish to go. Hopefully, some of them will look to the north west, to the Donegal area, and we will facilitate that.