Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will use up the ten minutes on amendment No. 9 alone. Agus níos mó, más gá. Aontaím leis an méid a dúirt an Teachta Ó Cathasaigh agus an Teachta Ó Broin. It is difficult when trying to deal with different concepts, in some ways, because of the Irish language part. I understand the understand the role of the Bills Office, so I am not criticising, but it means the debate is a bit disjointed.

I will try to stick to leasú Uimh. 9 in my name and it very similar to amendment No. 8 in the name of Deputies Cian O’Callaghan and Marc Ó Cathasaigh. It is to do with the definition of competency in Irish. We had quite a number of sessions dealing with this in coiste Gaeilge. As Deputy Ó Cathasaigh said, it is one of those issues that is drawn up. How can you define competency and, in some ways, why are we even dealing with competency in language because not everybody in the Gaeltacht is already able to speak Irish? In fact, that is now we have such a crisis. That is why we are asking for exceptional measures and specific recognition in the amendments that have been tabled by different members of the committee, people who are not in the committee and from outside, from organisations such as Conradh na Gaeilge.

Planning authorities have failed in some ways. They will blame the Minister. We had the different county council chief executives before our committee and they appealed to the Minister to give them the guidelines and let them know exactly what the criteria is. The Minister has not delivered those guidelines as yet, two and half years later. There is a bit of back-and-forth between the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, and the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, or the Minister of State, Deputy Patrick O’Donovan, as the Minister of State with responsibility for the Gaeltacht. Different sections are saying, “It is their fault” and “No, it is your fault”. We are finished with it one moment and then all of the sudden a different Department will say, “They did not finish” or “They did not do this”. In the meantime, there is no set criteria that would protect Gaeltacht areas from developments that are proposed for areas such as An Rinn and Ráth Chairn. We have seen cases in Dingle, An Daingean, and elsewhere. Some of these have ended up in the courts because protection has not been granted to ensure the demand for housing from Gaeltacht areas is recognised.

At the end of the day, it ends up that a development might get a planning criteria that, for example, 30% of the houses will go to the Irish-speakers. However, there is no accepted specific criteria or measure accepted for competency. I think in the Dingle case, if you answered the question, “Do you speak Irish?”, which was put in English, by saying, “Yes”, that was enough. There is no measure that they speak Irish. Thankfully, the courts have been quite favourable in some cases and have tried to protect the community. We are trying to make sure this is set down in law.

I refer to level 2B in the common European framework for languages, which was developed by the Council of Europe. The framework is a measure to assess people’s fluency in a language and it is accepted across the Continent. The measure is used and assessed by Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge, TEG, and that is done in Maynooth University. When the Public Appointments Service is recruiting for roles specifically where Irish is required, it uses that measure. Therefore, it is not as if it is a brand new measure coming out of nowhere; it is used. It is fluency in spoken language. It is not written language. It is not a test to see whether a person can answer letters as Gaeilge or whatever.

The key here is to ensure that the last remaining area where Irish is the vernacular is protected. It is not whether they can speak English or not. We take it as given that everybody in Ireland at this stage can speak a level of Irish. When I was younger up to the age of seven, I could not speak English, even though I was in the city. Thankfully, many people are rearing kids through Irish. Now at a young age, other than the influence of television and so on, the language is Irish. The problem is that once you go beyond the home or beyond the schoolyard, English is all-pervasive. Part of this is to protect those areas where it is not all-pervasive yet. They are under pressure.

This amendment is trying to ensure the common framework that measures the spoken language measures the range, vocabulary, accuracy, fluency, how a person interacts with others, and their coherence - whether a person can have a conversation. There is a need to assess a person who says they are fluent or, as the question asks, “Can you speak Irish?” Can you really speak Irish or is it just you have a few sentences? Having a few sentences is not being able to speak Irish with a fluency that a person should get an exception over and above other people. The reason for the exception and the reason we are trying to make a special planning area for the Gaeltacht is to ensure that those who are getting the right to live in the Gaeltacht can enhance this precious, valuable, historical heritage and living heritage - it is a living heritage in many ways.

I was at a protest earlier today outside. There was a lot of media around Bánú, which is trying to address this or trying to get us to address this. In many ways, it is aimed at some of these amendments. The journalist asked me my opinion of the amendments. The point I made is that if the Gaeltacht is gone, it is gone. It is not coming back unless you have 1,000 or 2,000 years in which to start all over again. If a Gaeltacht area dies – there are ones under threat – it is near impossible to bring it back unless you do what was done as an experiment in the 1930s where a whole load of families were dragged out of Connemara and landed in the middle of Meath. As an experiment, Ráth Chairn worked. Anybody who has visited Baile Ghib can see that. It is a lot smaller and it is near Ráth Chairn. That area is under huge pressure. Anybody who has visited An Rinn, as Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh can attest to, can see the growth in tourism and the growth in the English language. People being able to build houses nearby is putting pressure on that jewel in that area.

The Chair is indicating that he is looking for me to wrap up.