Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

No, but a "k" and a "y" in Irish, which is interesting. Accordingly, there is nothing new in modernisation. There should be simplifications. I do not think one can get rid of the séimhiú totally, nor of the urú. I would prefer not to make judgments which would be better made by experts. One cannot suddenly make non-native speakers out of native speakers because they do not understand the new "speak".

However, there are great inconsistencies in the caighdeán oifigiúil. For example, we all know that in Munster Irish, one says "bhíos" agus "bhí sibh" agus "bhíomar" agus na rudaí sin ar fad, whereas in Connacht we have the simple version, with which Deputy McGinley is probably familiar, namely "bhí mé", "bhí tú", "bhí sé", "bhí muid", "bhí sibh" agus "bhí siad". I could never understand why the caighdeán oifigiúil has "bhí mé", "bhí tú", "bhí sé", "bhíomar", "bhí sibh" agus "bhí siad". I do not know why it did not use the foirm scartha gan bhriathar i gcónaí. That is by far the simplest, perfectly grammatical and correct in two of the major dialects, in my understanding. Accordingly it would be a much simpler form to teach a child, so that every verb would be the préamh of the verb, "bhí" nó "tá" nó "bheadh" and so on, with simply "mé", "tú", "sé", "muid", "sibh" and "siad".

There is work to be done in this area. I intend to pursue it. As I said, we have raised the issue with Foras na Gaeilge. The board is central to the issue because under the British-Irish Agreement Act 1999 it is responsible for An Coiste Téarmaíochta. Clearly it is sensible for the body which now has the official, legal responsibility for téarmaíocht to look also at what I see as the associated issue of grammar and the caighdeán oifigiúil. We must move forward and we cannot freeze the language. I am not a linguist or a great expert in the area but I understand that in many languages, the genitive is not used in the same form in which it was used 100 years ago. That is not unique to Irish, although in certain cases in Irish the change has accelerated.

Certain changes are quite incorrect. A common one which has entered the Irish language is "an asal" and "ar an t-asal". That is just nonsense. I will not support the bastardisation of the language by the introduction of — I will try not to use unparliamentary language although one can get away with that in Irish easier than in English — non-native forms of speech which are quite inappropriate to the language as spoken. Tá bealach nóáit idir eatarthu agus ba mhaith liom é a fheiceáil ag dul ar aghaidh.

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