Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

We are aware that we are starting the Irish language promotion scheme with a very modest sum of money. However, my experience shows that the small number of third level institutions to which we have been giving funding are very appreciative of what we regard as modest funding. We expect that the funding will act as leverage funding. In other words, for every euro we invest, another euro will become available from another source. This happened in the case of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which was able to obtain funds because we gave funds. This practice is common among universities. Therefore, if our funds are matched, there is a potential fund of €600,000 for the teaching of Irish.

The maximum amount any university will be able to get is €30,000 while the minimum will be €10,000. Allowing for matching funds, this should allow for the employment of a person to teach Irish. When I visited the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, I met representatives from that institution and representatives from other universities in the United States who indicated they regard the funding as a valuable asset.

It is a well-known fact that if we want people to speak Irish at home, the standing of the language nationally and internationally will be of major importance. It will come as an eye-opener to many to find out there are universities in the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, England, Scotland, Wales, Poland and Japan teaching modern Irish. That will give people a sense that many in other parts of the world value the Irish language and assist our effort to put the Irish language in its proper international context. A side effect of this scheme is that many of the students who study Irish in these universities visit Ireland and the Gaeltacht where they provide an economic boost and encourage people at home to learn the language.

The budget for the Department of Education and Science runs to billions of euro and adding €300,000 to that budget would make little change in the number of schools teaching through English in the Gaeltacht. That is not fundamentally an issue of money but of policy, with which we are dealing in a different context. The Deputy might clarify whether his party if it were in Government would scrap this scheme and put the money into something else.

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