Dr. Teresa Lynn:

I will be happy to answer that question. Mura miste leis an gcoiste, caithfidh mé an cheist a fhreagairt as Béarla. There are three main points coming from that. The first is about Irish being outdated and how we can make it relevant in a digital world. The second one is how we can get our apps, our phones and our computers to understand Irish. The third question is to do with the European Commission and Union and what they are doing for the language.

I will start with the issue of the outdatedness of the language, which has basically been my motivation and remit for the work that I have done over the past ten years. This is to do with the idea and rhetoric that Irish is outdated, irrelevant and the question that is asked as to what it has to do with my life. One can see that already where one can imagine children going to school, to their French or German classes, and they all have the latest apps to help them along.

If you go into an Irish class, you see paper and pen and the old books. From the minute they go in, children associate it with being outdated. They ask what the point is, why they are learning this archaic language and what it has to do with them and with today's world. You are already facing that hurdle because you do not have the technology in the class. This is a whole area in which research has not been done and it needs to be explored. It is called computer-aided language learning, CALL. It is being done for multitudes of languages across the world. We have plenty of templates and blueprints to draw from for Irish but it has not been done. The funding has not been put into the area and the role of CALL has not been taken as seriously as the education system, the classroom, the curriculum and so on. It is very important we take up CALL.

In the same vein of normalising the use of the language in our lives, not necessarily just among children but among teenagers and adults, we could see more automatic subtitling. We do not have automatic subtitling for Irish. Imagine, in 2023, such a system still has not been built. We do not have it. That should be available, not necessarily only for those who are hard of hearing watching TV but also for those who are trying to watch something on their phone on a bus. It can be done for French, German and English but we cannot subtitle automatically in Irish.

We need translation systems, not to do translators out of a job but to help people get the gist of content in real time. Imagine the parents of kids going to Gaelscoileanna who do not have a very good command of Irish but who are trying to improve it. They get communications through Irish through the door or in their inbox. Translation systems help them get the gist of what is happening.

There are a great many ways we can support teachers and parents through technology and these very simple systems if funding were invested in the research. I am talking about research in artificial intelligence, AI. It is not a case of having someone who knows how to code a little bit in Java or Python and who also speaks a language. It is artificial intelligence, which is what the ADAPT centre covers through funding from Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. The work I have done over recent years was funded through the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. That is fantastic but the Department's officials are not AI specialists or scientific researchers. We need broader and more joined-up thinking about how we manage research into this technology and the Irish language. That is exactly what I was referring to in that European report.

As for apps not recognising us, we have a problem. Large technology companies in Ireland enjoy many benefits but there should be a level of corporate responsibility imposed on them to make them give back to the Irish public. The argument, which is understandable, is that there are more than 7,000 languages in the world and it is difficult to decide which of them to support. That is fine but, in Ireland, we could put on more pressure from the perspective of corporate social responsibility and ask that a greater level of support be provided for the Irish language or that companies work with the Department or with SFI on a collaborative approach.

From the European perspective, I mentioned in my summary statement that there is a report on the Irish language from European Language Equality. There are recommendations at the back. That is part of a broader project of European Language Equality, which ran for two years. It was co-ordinated by DCU and involved 52 partners across Europe. Reports were written ten years ago, in 2012, giving status updates for languages across Europe and how well they were supported by technology. Irish fell into the weak or no support category ten years ago. In the latest report, from last year, we are still in the same category because nothing was done. Nobody took any notice or cared.

The risk of digital extinction is not some new buzzword, like ChatGPT might be to some people, or some new idea. The risk of digital extinction is real. That means that languages will start to be used less when the technology is not there. People will shift. The younger generation will shift and use another language the technology is there for. We do not have the funding. It needs to come from the national level and it will come from the European level. A co-operative approach is needed. We spoke to the European Commission last November and put this forward. We highlighted the languages that are at very high risk and those that definitely need more support. We have a long tail effect where English is very well supported with German, French and Spanish not far behind while the rest of us are all in this long tail. If members read the report, they can see where Ireland is down there. We have proposed a long-term programme across Europe to help each member country bring its languages up to speed.

We have used the term "equality". It is actually impossible to reach a level of equality with English. We speak about digital language equality but what we want to do is to bring languages to a place where they can survive in this digital age and thrive and be vibrant as opposed to falling behind. About a week ago, there was a conversation with the Commissioner on this matter. No decision has been made yet as to how much money is going to be put into this initiative, but there has been positive feedback and there is buy-in from MEPs. The idea is that the programme would be put in place with funding from the European level which would have to be matched from the national level. This is where the Irish Government needs to come in and take this seriously. I think I have covered most of the Cathaoirleach's points.