Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Money is a significant factor but it is not simply money alone. English speaking countries, principally Ireland and Britain, are far behind other countries in languages for a host of reasons. This applies not only within schools. A young person spends only 15% of his or her time in school. The remainder of the time is spent at home or outside at play or whatever. In some countries, Finland, for example, there is an explicit policy of using subtitles in all television and film shows such that one can watch programmes in English with subtitles. Young people and adults in Finland learn English while reading the Finnish subtitles. There are various ways in which the acquisition of language is made easier. Popular music is mostly in English now but that was not the case 20 or 30 years ago. In a sense we are at a disadvantage because we are not getting the same cultural cross-references. People are probably learning more Irish now from TG4 programmes with subtitles than was the case previously. I await the new report from the two academics and I hope we will get a sense of how we can improve our linguistic skills, which are behind those of other countries.

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