Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)

Tá áthas orm labhairt sa díospóireacht seo. Le déanaí thug mé Aire na Méara Fada, Minister of the Long Finger, ar an Aire. Deirim é sin arís. Inniu, tá mé chun labhairt as Gaeilge agus as Béarla. For the purpose of today's debate, I intend to address the House in both Irish and English. We are discussing two documents, the statement on the Irish language issued by the Government in December 2006 and the 2002 Coimisiún na Gaeltachta report.

The main decision in regard to the 2006 Government statement was to prepare a 20-year strategy for the Irish language. Last week, I put a parliamentary question to the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in regard to the progress on implementing the recommendations of the statement. I also asked how many meetings had taken place of the executive committee. The Minister informed me that the principal decision was to develop a 20-year strategy for the Irish language. He went on to say he held a meeting, Fóram na Gaeilge, on 5 March 2007. This forum was in existence throughout the life of the last Dáil and was charged with developing this strategy. It was agreed to form a sub-committee that would operate as a connection between the forum and his Department from the point of view of preparing the strategy. This sub-committee met in May and, among other the matters, discussed the employment of a consultant to assist the Minister's Department in preparing the strategy. I was informed that the Department had been discussing the process since then with a number of proposals having been made in regard to employment of the consultant. In the reply which issued on 31 October, the Minister informed me that the sub-committee would meet on Friday, 2 November. That is remarkable progress.

The Minister stated it was proposed to consult the public as part of the process of preparing the strategy and a series of public meetings would be held in various parts of the country. That is certainly an improvement on how the Minister acted while the Official Languages Act 2003 was passing through the Dáil. He informed a private meeting with the Irish language organisations in Spidéal that it was as well that English speaking people did not know about the Act because it would be difficult to pass if they did. At least he is going to allow open debate on this occasion.

He also stated that the process for developing the strategy would take approximately two years.

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