Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy McCormack. In her speech to the Seanad on 14 December 2005, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, stated that it was her belief that the provision of the University College Galway Act 1929, which gives preference in staff appointments to persons with a competency in the Irish language, was no longer the best instrument for the promotion and preservation of the Irish language.

It was clear from her address that, although the provision of the 1929 Act was considered appropriate at that time, a reform of the legislation is necessary today. The Minister appreciates that, when regulations devised in a different time are seen no longer to work, we should change them.

It is correct that outdated policies should be reformed. The amending legislation we are debating this afternoon removes from the National University of Ireland Galway, NUI Galway, the requirement to appoint persons competent to discharge their duties through the medium of Irish. Instead, it will put a new onus on NUI Galway to ensure that the provision of education through the medium of Irish will be part and parcel of every strategic plan devised for the college after the passing of this Act.

It also ensures that the governing body and the president of the college shall use their positions to ensure that this plan is implemented. This is very welcome. In terms of support for Irish, it will be of more practical use to the language to form part of each strategic plan for NUI Galway. This is not achieved under section 3 of the Act of 1929, under which the responsibilities of the college with respect to the Irish language begin and end with staff appointment.

I am somewhat perplexed by the Minister's wholehearted approval for this legislative change, which reforms an out-of-date regulation that no longer works, and introduces an element of choice in hiring policy which the college has lacked since 1929. The Minister, in endorsing this amending legislation, backs the right of the college and its governing body to use their strategic plans to support the Irish language in the most effective way possible, and to change their approach when change is needed. In short, she is endorsing the principle of choice and I welcome her conversion to that principle.

When the leader of Fine Gael, Deputy Kenny, recently advocated that the principle of choice should be introduced in respect of Irish at second level for all students after the junior certificate, the Minister described the proposal as an opportunistic attack which smacked of auction politics. It is not good enough that the Minister for Education and Science should show such disregard for the educational welfare of our second level school children. This Minister has ignored the trends that all available educational data repeatedly show of school performance in Irish. Instead of acknowledging that there is a problem that can no longer be ignored when this matter was raised in November the Minister responded by attempting to shoot the messenger.

The Minister for Education and Science, the person responsible for the educational welfare of all children and young people in this State, should deal with all of the facts. No alternative proposals have been brought forward for the Irish language at this level. We must acknowledge the facts. Students leave school without a reasonable command of Irish even though they have received up to 1,500 hours of tuition in the language. The Irish language commissioner highlighted this in his recent inaugural report. Only three out of ten leaving certificate students attempt the honours Irish paper. This is far below the figures for other languages taught to this level. Almost five out of ten students taking French attempt the honours paper and six out of ten students of German and English take the higher level paper. Young people perform better at a language such as French that they have studied for only five or six years than in Irish which they have studied for 13 or 14 years.

Thousands of leaving certificate students do not even bother to sit the Irish language examination although they have been learning the language since they were young children. Despite the heavy-handed approach to compulsory Irish sustained over decades there is such a lack of fluency in the language among employees in the public sector that the Irish language commissioner has expressed concern. Although more than 1.5 million Irish people describe themselves as Irish speaking only 72,000 adults use the language daily. The use of Irish plummets when people leave school. Of the 339,541 who state they use the language daily 266,707 are between the ages of three and 19, the key schoolgoing years during which Irish is used every day in the classroom.

Among 20 to 24 year olds, who are just out of school, the figure for daily use of Irish plummets to 9,111 people. For no age group thereafter does it exceed 15,000.

The use of Irish in the Gaeltacht is also of concern. Between the census of 1996 and that of 2002, the number of Irish-speakers living in Gaeltacht areas using Irish daily dropped from 58% to 54%. The number of Irish speakers living in Gaeltacht areas using the language less often than daily, weekly or not at all increased by 2% in that time. In the Mayo Gaeltacht, of the 2,482 persons over the age of three using Irish daily, 1,275 are aged 19 or under — once again the key schoolgoing years. Comparing the 15 to 19 age bracket with the 20 to 24 one, daily use of Irish plummets by 84%, from 352 to 57. I have compiled these statistics from reports published by the Department of Education and Science itself and the Central Statistics Office.

It is time to open our eyes to the real situation in which Irish finds itself throughout the country. The trends that we see in comparing results from the census of 1996 with that of 2002, and in looking at leaving certificate results data for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004, are deeply worrying and point to a decline in language use that will prove fatal if left unchallenged. The response from the Government hitherto has been to give itself a congratulatory pat on the back with regard to achieving official language status for Irish in the European Union without acknowledging the real actions that should be prioritised now in our education system.

I wholeheartedly welcome official status, but it is of vital importance that we now see the introduction of real reforms that will result in more people using the language. In bringing forward the University College Galway (Amendment) Bill, the Minister has acknowledged that reform is needed. However, I would like to see the Minister move to reform the language at second level too and introduce choice regarding Irish for all students after they have completed the junior certificate examination. By contrast, in the University College Galway (Amendment) Bill 2005, the Government is proposing a reasonable amendment to legislation dating from the 1920s, now clearly out of date. The new Bill allows NUI Galway to use its sense and experience to promote education through Irish in the best way possible. The new Bill allows NUI Galway to alter strategic plans over time, to respond to need and demand, and to assess where strategies are working and, importantly, where they are not.

In short, the new Bill gives NUI Galway the autonomy and choice that it needs and that Irish needs to develop organically through use and learning. From an educational perspective, that is vital. It is also of paramount importance that all universities, NUI Galway included, be able to recruit the best qualified personnel available in all spheres of education, from the arts and social sciences to science and technology. As our universities compete on an international stage, not only for research and development moneys but also for lecturing and research staff, NUI Galway must be able to recruit from overseas those people who can contribute to the successes of the college in teaching, research and academic life. Recruiting academic staff on the international stage is a fact of life, and the amending legislation allows NUI Galway to compete on a more equal footing with other academic institutions in Ireland and, as is now paramount, overseas.

NUI Galway must be enabled to recruit the best people to work at the Galway city campus and its outreach centres. Like all universities, NUI Galway has a regional, national and international dimension to its work, and must be allowed to fulfil its true potential in each respect. This amending legislation has the support of the president of NUI Galway and the governing authority of the university. Concern has been expressed in some quarters about the precise wording selected by the Minister in advancing the necessary legislative reform. I am of the opinion that, by allowing the college to include Irish as part of every successive strategic report, this amendment is beneficial to both the language and the college, but I would welcome clarification from the Minister on how the wording was devised.

In her closing contribution to the Seanad in December, the Minister for Education and Science stated that the University College Galway (Amendment) Bill "represents a significant step forward in modernising our education system while demonstrating an ongoing commitment to the development of education through Irish". I welcome her statement and the principles that underpin this Bill, but I ask that she spread them throughout the entire education sector. I congratulate everyone at NUI Galway on their enormous achievements to date in creating a fine, dynamic university with a diverse range of disciplines, even with outdated legislation such as they have had to deal with. I know that they will continue to recognise the importance of our national language and ensure through strategic plans that it is no longer just another entry requirement for staff but an integral part of life and learning at NUI Galway.

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