Professor Diarmuid Hegarty:

Yes. There was a programme on RTÉ radio last night, I think it was "Arena", where they were talking about her work. They talked about how she felt in the Irish language that the language of affection and the language of emotion was so much richer in that regard. We must get that across to our young people in the teaching of Irish so they actually understand the richness of the language. They need to use it daily. It would be helpful in helping them if we had a measure of their skill, that is, something like Test of English as a Foreign Language, TOEFL, or the International English Language Testing System, IELTS, or something like that. We might then decide to set a national requirement. I have gone on too long already but I could go on at length in answer to the Deputy's question.