Mr. Peter Finnegan:

As I mentioned earlier, there are five ushers who are competent transacting business in Irish. Other members of the usher team would have some level of proficiency in Irish but would not be líofa. We do a number of things for them. Our staff go on an extensive range of courses. People can avail of refund of fees schemes and we encourage them to do so. I have to say that the overall attendance level at the courses is disappointing. We are putting on these facilities for people. I will illustrate the numbers. We have an elementary course for staff and an intermediate and advanced course for staff. There are nine people in each class. The average attendance would be five or six. This means that just 18 of the 500 people in the organisation, or approximately 2% to 3%, are committed to doing weekly courses that last approximately an hour and a half. My own view is that we almost have to whet people's appetite before we put on more courses. Just as the leabharlann has social occasions, I feel there are things we can do to bring people back into using Irish. We would hope they would want to build on that and improve their Irish through courses. There is almost a kind of reintroductory piece that has to be done in respect of that.