Ms Anne O'Mahony:

The Eurobarometer is one of a series of periodic surveys carried out by the European Commission on Europeans and their languages. The current barometer is the third in the series. The first was in 2001, the second in 2006 and the current one was conducted in 2012. The key findings of the survey reveal that Europeans have a very positive attitude towards multilingualism. Almost all Europeans, 98%, think that mastering a foreign language is useful for their children's future and 88% see it as useful for themselves. Almost three quarters, 72%, agree with the EU objective that everybody should learn at least two foreign languages. Some 77% think that improvement in language skills should be a policy priority and 67% see English as one of the two most useful languages for themselves. Among the others most frequently cited as useful are: German, 17%; French, 16%; Spanish, 14%; and Chinese, 6%.

With regard to some of the other figures, countries showing the most noticeable increase in the proportion of respondents saying they can speak at least one foreign language well enough to hold a conversation compared to data from the 2006 survey are: Austria, up 16 percentage points to 78%; Finland, up six percentage points to 75%; and Ireland, up six percentage points to 40%. Very few countries show a notable increase in the proportion of respondents able to speak at least two foreign languages, with the most marked being Italy, up six percentage points to 22% and Ireland, up five percentage points to 18%. I wonder whether immigrant populations play a role in this, but it is certainly a positive finding. That said, there are also negative findings. Countries where respondents are least likely to be able to speak any foreign language are Hungary, 65%, Italy, 62%, the UK and Portugal, 61% and Ireland, 60%. It is certainly not all a rosy picture.

While on the issue of the Eurobarometer survey, Deputy Griffin asked what people were doing with the languages they acquired at second and third level. This survey address that. Page 54 contains a list of what people do with their languages, including, holidays abroad and watching films or television. For Irish people, some 46% use their languages for holidays abroad, 26% for watching films and television and 14% for the Internet.

Interestingly, it was found that 24% of respondents used foreign languages for work conversations, either face to face or over the telephone. I will not go through all of the activities mentioned in the survey. Apparently, 10% of Irish people - or at least of those who responded to the survey - use foreign languages in reading at work. All of the data are contained on page 54 of the survey. I can send a link to the committee, if that would be helpful.

I wish to move on from the Eurobarometer survey to the modern languages in primary schools initiative. As members are aware, the decision to end the initiative was taken in the context of the challenging budgetary environment we are facing. There are no plans to revisit this decision. When the initiative was introduced, it was not applied to all schools. At a time when we are trying to fit so many activities into the curriculum, it is clear that curriculum overload was an issue. In addition, there were problems with the replicability of the model across the system. It was not systemic; it was an initiative. Difficulties were identified and it was decided to end the modern languages in primary schools initiative.

I would like to conclude by picking up on something Ms Naughton said. The idea of the integrated language curriculum is to focus on English and Irish as languages. When I was in school, Irish did not feel like a language; it felt like something else. The aim of the new integrated language curriculum at primary level is to underline that English and Irish are languages with points of comparison and that skills can be transferred between them. The idea of the new curriculum is to help children to become aware of these skills explicitly. If primary school pupils develop the ability to transfer skills between the two languages offered in the primary system, Irish and English, they can transfer that ability at post-primary level and use it to acquire other languages. By making it explicit that Irish and English are languages with certain features in common, it is hoped to allow students to appreciate how languages work and apply that knowledge when they are learning other languages at post-primary level.