Mr. John Howlin:

On the research, the level of Irish coming out of schools is not something I would be looking at as part of my role but it has come up as an issue in the broader considerations of the advisory committee. There have been some concerns expressed but the work that is going on, while it is not going on in the committee, is going on in parallel regarding the standards. It is very important to have that clarity around the standards. I think there is some work going on with the Department of Education but it is not my area to look at Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge, TEG, as something which could be used within the post-primary system. If that sort of European framework were brought in, it would address some of the concerns mentioned by the Deputy which have been expressed at the committee.

On the standards in recruitment, to a certain extent the same considerations may apply. Anecdotally, we would hear of problems where someone would put in a job spec mentioning fluency in Irish or in another language but that might mean different things to different people. Again, the standards make the expectations around the post much clearer. I would hope that would come into play a bit more.

More generally, OneLearning surveys people who go on those training courses. In the autumn term last year, the most recent term, 65% of individuals indicated that they use what they have learned on the course in their jobs. There is some positive news around the training going on there.

Finally, Deputy McHugh spoke about the EU and that new very positive development there. In practice, it results in more competition for Irish speakers in what Ms McCabe has already said it is a very tight market. It is one of the things we are looking at in developing our own models and approaches to attracting Irish-language speakers into the Civil Service and public service. The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media was involved in that project, as the committee is aware, and some of the lessons it learned from that are things that we are looking to apply in the Civil Service again. There are also positives we can take from that and it is more generally positive that there are more opportunities available also.