Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I will come back to the substance of amendment No. 13 in the future when we debate a finance Bill. It deals with a peculiar circumstance that pertains to a number of people whose companies have failed because of the economic downturn and who have tax liabilities. They cannot access their social welfare entitlements because they cannot clear their tax liabilities even though they are willing to have a charge put against their social welfare entitlements.

My opposition to section 24 is that a dangerous precedent is being set. An Act of the State is being set aside by this section. The section says that because of a deadline set by the IMF we will suspend our law. The legislation in this case is the Official Languages Act 2003. This sets a dangerous precedent and says much about how the Government views our sovereignty. I will deal with the whole aspect of the Irish language shortly. There are methods of overcoming a translation problem that exists.

We should be very careful not to suspend laws that have been enacted to facilitate a very tight timeframe set by the Minister because of a timeframe agreed with the IMF. This measure is seriously flawed. For the sake of two or three days or weeks, or even two or three months, we should not set aside major legislation that was debated at length in this House in 2003. It has major implications for the standing of the Irish language and the rights of Irish language speakers to access legislation.

The method used by this House of producing Irish language translations after the fact is one of the problems. I have argued continually that, as happens in other parliaments in bilingual states or nations, legislation should be published in both languages at the same time from the outset. I complained a number of years ago because legislation dealing with University College Galway, and specifically with the Irish language, was published in English. Even though I wanted to contribute to the debate totally in Irish I could not do so because amendments had to be submitted in English. I had submitted amendments in Irish but I was required to translate them to English and then speak on them as Gaeilge. It is bizarre that I, an Irish language speaker, am restricted in my ability to contribute totally in Irish in the House because legislation is not published bilingually.

If legislation was published bilingually in the first instance it would not take long to update it after its passage. This Bill will be translated after the fact, when it has been passed by the Seanad on 28 June. The Bill must be published by 1 July, leaving only three days to translate a complex Bill. If the Bill were published in both languages from the outset the complex detail would be in place and we would be able to debate it in Irish, in English or in both languages.

For the sake of the IMF, we are suspending our legislative provisions in this area. That is a retrograde step. It is a precedent. Given the tight timeframes in the passage of finance Bills and other emergency legislation this precedent will be availed of. We will return to the situation that existed heretofore when even Irish language Acts were not available in Irish and court cases were struck out because Irish language versions of legislation were not available.

A change is needed but this measure is not necessary. I am informed that the translators in the Houses are confident that they will have this Bill translated in the required time in any event. That is how good they are. They sometimes work under huge pressure. I do not tell them in advance whether I will speak as Gaeilge nó as Béarla and that can be a difficulty. The same is true for everyone else in the Chamber. In the European Parliament a multitude of languages are accommodated. It is costly and may be a little bureaucratic but it is one of the rights we have, as Irish speakers in this country.

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