Mr. Doncha O'Sullivan:

I accept that I have seen people say they thought it was. That in itself is a concern and one I recognise. The core of this set of regulations is an attempt to identify selection techniques which will assist An Garda Síochána in identifying future supervisors and managers. The work was all around looking at what one test for and look for. The conclusion which was arrived at was that having an Irish test score slightly higher than that required to be a Garda in the first place was not central to the decision as to whether a person would make a good supervisor or manager. That was the analysis.

The essence of the new regulation is all about making the promotion process better, on the one hand, for the organisation in order that it knows it can select the best people for the jobs and, on the other hand, for the applicants to have very clear criteria they understand and which are clearly linked to the needs of what is a very important role in An Garda Síochána.

I understand the point the Deputy made about slighting the language and that was certainly not the intent. As the Deputy Commissioner has said, a very significant volume of work is under way in An Garda Síochána to address the question of language service provision, which has the full support of the Department and the Minister. We hope we could point to that as evidence of our good faith with regard to the status of the Irish language.