Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

Ar son an Chomhaontais Ghlais, fáiltím roimh an Bhille seo. The Green Party adheres to the principle of the Bill. I have met the college authorities and I support the Bill wholeheartedly. I have tabled an amendment which I believe will strengthen the Irish ethos of the legislation. If this proves to be unacceptable to the Minister, however, I will be happy to proceed on the basis that it is important to get the legislation through as quickly as possible.

The Minister and other speakers noted the need in a modern society to remove the barrier that existed, the built-in requirement to appoint candidates competent in the Irish language. That is welcome if one is trying to build a top-class international university in a globalised economy. I hope the measures in this Bill and the commitment shown by the management of the college will continue the Irish ethos one way or another.

Fine Gael has put forward its big idea on Irish, which is to make it less compulsory. While I was listening to Deputy Enright, I noted this is being pushed by the language reform movement, which is very critical of anything Irish and sees it as totalitarian nationalism. The movement believes that any retention of the Irish language or even Irish studies being taught in schools is not acceptable. I wonder if Fine Gael is going down that road and if it supports the aims and ambitions of the language reform movement in this regard.

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