Ulick Burke (Galway East, Fine Gael)

They are playing hurling. I do not know whether there is an association between the two. Why do we spend eight years at national school and another five or six at second level and leave practically illiterate in Irish? There is a reason.

Fine Gael made a proposal on the Irish language before the election and it was castigated by the Minister and many others, particularly the Minister for Education and Science. The latter stated we wanted to abandon our commitment to Irish and that we were intent on killing it, but nothing could be further from the truth because our leader, Deputy Enda Kenny, is an absolutely fluent Irish speaker. Many others are fluent also but are not sufficiently confident or cleachtaithe chun é a labhairt sa Teach seo nó sa Seanad.

If resources were channelled into an education system that emphasised the spoken word initially at national school, we would have a completely different attitude to the language. The intricacies of Irish grammar and the presentation of the written word are difficult, as the Minister will agree. There is nothing to indicate clearly that all the fora and studies on the Irish language down through the years increased the number of speakers or the quality of the language spoken.

Purists in organisations such as Conradh na Gaeilge, because of their absolute scorn for those who are not 100% correct in all their statements in Irish, have done tremendous damage to the effort to expand its use. Such people are not as prominent as they once were, which I welcome, and their place has been taken by gaelscoileanna. Members should do whatever they can, not necessarily at Gaeltacht level but at national level, to expand the gaelscoil concept.

The Minister is probably well aware of the tragic circumstances whereby the gaelscoil in Ballinasloe was housed in a small shopping arcade and the classes were housed in particular units thereof. The school survived owing to the absolute determination of the parents, staff and pupils. Were it not for this determination, it would have ceased to exist.

The Minister for Education and Science was in no way concerned to create the ideal conditions in which the pupils could be educated trí Ghaeilge. The numbers game that operated with regard to pupil-teacher ratios should have been responded to imaginatively to offer an added incentive to those promoting the language. This did not happen, perhaps because Department staff in the background said the existing allocation could not be increased. This led to serious difficulties for the school and many other schools. The school in Loughrea, Gaelscoil Riabhach, survived in a demountable unit. The authorities believed they were in heaven when they got the unit on a county council site. It is far removed from the activity in the town, yet it has survived. In Athenry, there are proposals for a gaelscoil.

The Minister should talk to the Minister for Education and Science with a view to supporting these gaelscoileanna. Gaelscoileanna are budding in so many areas of the country but are being ignored. They are being established in undesirable conditions but the Department of Education and Science is not concerned.

It is totally wrong that lines are drawn on maps to differentiate between Gaeltachtaí and Galltachtaí. As one enters Galway city on the Tuam road, one sees the sign for the Gaeltacht. Does the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs accept this is a real Gaeltacht area? Under what conditions would he say it is right to identify a region as a Gaeltacht? Residents in Gaeltachtaí can obtain superior grants for housing projects than those outside them, and that is wrong. The grants are given only because the residents speak Irish and this leads to resentment on the part of those outside the boundary. It is important the Minister regularises the system.

The Minister for Education and Science, in conjunction with the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, should be asked to ensure that Irish is taught entirely through the spoken word in the first few years of primary education, be they pupils in a gaelscoil or otherwise. Deputy Stanton referred to Irish being beaten into pupils but the many good Irish teachers who made a supreme effort to teach Irish down through the years should not be identified as responsible for having turned children off the language. The reality is that teaching the language is very difficult.

How many second level textbooks are available in Irish for subjects other than tíreolas or stair? There is none available for mathematics, physics, chemistry or other languages. If we were serious about Irish, we would make such textbooks available. In the Minister's constituency there used to be a publishing firm that did marvellous work providing books trí Ghaeilge, including textbooks, but we know what happened to it. If there is a will and a determination to do the practical things that are important for the promotion of the Irish language, it can be done.

I was a member of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which was faced with the translation of every Act. Initially, we said that it would be very costly and that nobody would read the translations. We must look again at this attitude and say that it is important for us to have those particular items. I think it is——

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