Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are 800 children with native Irish in schools in the Gaeltacht. The Irish language study carried out seven years ago reported that Irish as a community language in the State had 20 years left. There are now 13 years left. Whereas people currently give out about English language documents having to be translated into Irish, we will now have to have Irish language documents translated into English so that the Ministers can understand them. The working language of the Department now becomes English because at its top the Ministers themselves cannot understand Irish. The Ministers are saying to these children to learn Irish and speak Irish among themselves and their families, but not to speak it to the Ministers as they do not have it.

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