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

I will again take the last question first. Ultimately, it will be a unanimous decision by the Council at European level. Active engagement is under way between Department of the Taoiseach officials and my officials. That is in preparation at the moment but, ultimately, it will require a unanimous decision by the Council at European level.

Reference was made to the timeframe. The Official Languages Act dates from 2003. Following that there was a heavy investment of money into courses in 2006. I understand approximately €12 million has been invested in that time in training up people. We need to invest more. There will be decisions. There will be news on that in the not-too-distant future in respect of whether we look at further investment in the training of people in the required competencies and whether we make decisions in respect of interpretation, translation or the very skilled competency of lawyer linguistics. Many competencies are required. A further €1 million has been invested this year.

There will be further expansion and further investment. The Government sees the opportunity. It is not only an opportunity in terms of jobs. Jobs are important, but this is about following through on the 2007 official recognition of Irish as an official working language at European level. There is potential here to grow the language and to ensure that we have a mature and credible approach to the right road. The options available are to extend, amend or keep the present scenario. No decision has been made on that yet.

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