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

I will take the last question first. Deputy Flanagan asked who makes the decision. This requires a unanimous decision of the Council of the European Union. As I said earlier there is active engagement between the Department of the Taoiseach and my Department. My officials are working hard and engaging with the EU institutions. There is almost a trilateral negotiation going on. Ultimately, it will be a decision by the Council. It has to be decided before the end of 2015 in order that whatever approach is being adopted can be implemented on 1 January 2017.

There are legislative and non-legislative services as well as potential services. That is happening all the time at the moment. Some 50 staff are working within different institutions in the European Union. There is potential for expanding more job opportunities. Deputy Flanagan mentioned a figure of over 180 potential jobs. That is accurate. There is major potential here. The strong message we should be sending out not only within the public domain but into our schools, including our primary schools and to the people who are going to do the junior certificate and consider languages, is that there is potential here.

There is the question of competency and credibility around having the three working languages. It is not simply a case of having Irish and English. People need three working languages and there are challenges around that. We need to be and we are actively engaging with the Department of Education and Skills around promoting the use of other or foreign languages within the European Union. That is where the potential is. I agree with that. In terms of the derogation-----

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