Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I support Deputy O'Brien's amendment. It is unfortunate that we must split, because this has been a good debate on this legislation, because the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Deenihan, has asked the Minister, Deputy Shatter to do it. Quite frankly, it is unbelievable that An Roinn Ealaíon, Oidhreachta agus Gaeltachta is looking for this provision, which seems to be in every piece of legislation. I tabled a question to the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht today and it was ruled out of order because of the context of this debate.

The Official Languages Act 2003 is not perfect. It certainly has done much good, but it needs to be reviewed and streamlined. By inserting this clause we are doing what we have done with previous legislation, that is to say, giving direction to that review. Effectively, we are making the point in advance of that review starting that we intend to downgrade the status of the Irish language. Our MEPs were in the House before the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs today. We have fought long and hard to have Irish recognised as an official working language of the European Union. However, through this and other legislation we are attempting to diminish its status here and on that basis we support the amendments.

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