Mr. Peter Finnegan:

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta. I will start with the financial side of things. I cannot give precise answers to the Deputy at the moment but I would hope to be able to do that on the next occasion that I appear before the committee because we intend to commission a comparative study of bilingualism. I have long felt that if we are serious about having a bilingual Parliament, it has to be designed into our processes. That is one of the difficulties that we had with Bille na dTeangacha Oifigiúla cúpla bliain ó shin. Our translation side was okay but the process side was a great challenge for us. It took us 55 hours to process all of the amendments due simply to process issues. If you have a bilingual parliament, you have worked out your processes and systems and can accommodate much more readily that type of thing. One of the things we now have to do is to look at the likes of the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament, and look overseas to the Canadian Parliament and the Belgian Parliament and see how they operate bilingualism and use best practice from elsewhere to inform what we do within the Houses of the Oireachtas.

On the SIPO question, to the best of my knowledge there is no requirement there and that is obviously a policy matter. The rules regarding funding of political parties and the use of that funding are set out in legislation. It would obviously be open to the Minister responsible to insert a provision to encourage greater use of Irish rather than any sort of a stick. That is the approach I would take. Does Vivian wish to comment on any of this?