Mr. David Leahy:

Is sampla é. I have been ag obair leis na Gaelscoileanna agus na daoine sa Ghaeltacht le haghaidh 11 bliain and, while others may have a different opinion, I think I have been doing so effectively. Others may differ but I certainly believe I have. When we are appointing people, what I am looking for is people who have a positive disposition towards Gaeilge and that they are willing to learn. That is the ceist we put to them. We ask if they are willing to improve their Gaeilge. By the way, everybody has it to ardteistiméireacht level but they are not líofa. That is a pity after 14 years but that may be a question for a different day. However, once they have a positive disposition and are willing to engage, learn and improve, we will support them in paying for any courses they wish to do but there is an expectation they will improve. That applies to anybody. If we were to reduce it down to making it compulsory, which is a decision for others and not for me, the pool of potential candidates would be reduced to the 5% or 10% of the population who are líofa sa Ghaeilge. There are an awful lot of other criteria, not just Gaeilge. There are many other criteria to ensure that somebody will be effective in the role of director of schools, further education and training, the administrative side of the ETB or whatever it might be.