Ms Jean O'Mahony:

B'fhearr liom an cheist a fhreagairt i mBéarla, más féidir, chun a bheith cinnte go bhfuilim ag tabhairt freagra chruinn don Teachta. As I said in the opening statement, the approach to the status of Irish-language teaching and the Irish language at third level and the support provided for that can be broken up into three broad boxes.

Fundamentally, there is the support for teaching and learning of Irish provided through the €1.67 billion block grant. The third level institutions themselves are autonomous in how they use that block grant. If they decided in the morning that they wanted to expand the provision of Irish language courses, they could. That is not a decision for the State. The Department does not have a role in telling the universities and other third level institutions what courses they may offer. In addition, and recognising the particular role of third level in supporting the use and promotion of the language on campus, there is the additional support I have described, that is, the additional budgets, also known as top slices, one of which is-----