Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Funnily enough I have great sympathy for the Deputy and his questions. Ceist í, marbh le tae agus marbh gan é. Deputy O'Shea is always asking about expert opinion so rightly or wrongly we decided because this is a major 20 year strategy that we would get expert opinion, including international opinion on sociolinguistics, to advise us in the preparation of the strategy. I have a draft of the strategy and it is intended to publish this as soon as possible. The next meeting of the committee, as the Deputy will find in the reply to one of his parliamentary questions today, will take place next month. We are making progress on this. The draft report is being read and it is hoped to publish it in the reasonably near future. I will not put a date on it today and I will not give my stock answer "before next Christmas" because that covers any day from tomorrow until next Christmas Day so we will not play that little teasing game. It will be done as fast as possible.

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