Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No question arises in terms of my motivation rather it is a question of confidence - muinín. I am one of a large category of individuals who understands what people are saying when speaking Irish, including the Deputy in terms of the questions he has asked, but I do not have the confidence to converse in Irish. There are four processes to learning any language, the first of which is éist - listen - which is an issue raised in the Deputy's question. We should, perhaps, work on this by way of broadcasting and bringing Irish into people's homes in the morning. The other three processes are labhairt, léamh agus scríobh. When we all went to school we started with the fourth process, which is scríobh. We started writing the language before we understood it. We did not converse in Irish. I did not speak Irish to my tuismitheoirí when I went home in the evening. We started at the end of the process when we should have started with listening to the spoken word. We should be encouraging all of the great advocates of the Irish language, people who understand and speak it, to come to the fore. That is our job. As an individual, I am not going to change the challenges facing us in terms of the Irish language but I want to be a catalyst for it. I want to be the medium through which the many great groups representing the Irish language come to the fore. A consultative group has been already set up by the Government. I propose to work with that group.

See this speech in context