Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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They are strategic plans. What amendment No. 131 seeks to impose is not onerous. It just proposes that in the strategic plan, an institution consider how it will progressively increase. If it is starting from a low level, a progressive increase can be from a very minimal level. One of the big challenges for society as a whole regarding Irish concerns how we expand its use outside the third level institutions where Irish is pigeonholed as one of the arts subjects or whatever. In this instance, as the Minister correctly said, the institutions in question are private, not-for-profit institutions, but many of them are delivering courses on business, finance and whatnot. It is important that those courses be available through Irish or, at the very least, that there be an understanding, by virtue of the promotion of the Irish language within the institutions, that graduates may end up in areas where Irish is the vernacular and that there is a need to protect and enhance the language.