Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not take ten minutes. I am sorry I have not learned any sign language. I was hoping to get Rhona to teach me to say a few things. I thought of something this morning but I forgot. I was going to get her to teach me how to say, "Come on the Wexford Youths". Then I thought that if I could say that in sign language, after the results we had last weekend, they would probably say, "God help the Wexford Youths". I welcome everyone in the Visitors Gallery and the sign language interpreters. It is amazing what they are able to do. I hope my Wexford accent is not too much of a problem. I commend the work of Senator Mark Daly. Listening to John Bosco Conama, Eddie Redmond and Leanne Quigley when they came before the committee was a real education. I commend Deputy Ó Caoláin, the Chairman of the committee, for his enthusiasm. He seems to have been very enthused by it from the outset.

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Ireland signed in 2007, persons shall be entitled on an equal basis with others to recognition and support of their specific cultural and linguistic identity, including sign languages and deaf culture. However, despite the fact that ISL is the first language of 5,000 deaf people and approximately 40,000 people who communicate with deaf people through ISL, it has no official status in Irish legislation. In failing to recognise the indigenous language of a linguistic and cultural minority group, the State is actively facilitating the marginalisation of deaf people, particularly with regard to accessing public bodies such as the health service, the courts and the educational system.

Recognition is particularly important in education where its acquisition as a first language for deaf children is essential. The deaf community has suffered greatly by being ignored by the system. According to the Irish Deaf Society, one in four deaf adults leave school with no qualifications and one in three has literacy problems. According to the Irish Deaf Society survey entitled "Signing In, Signing Out", deaf people have higher than average unemployment rates and those who are in employment tend to be in low-paid positions earning below the average industrial wage.

Failure to recognise the rights of a minority is a recurring theme in this country. Despite the State's promises to the UN Human Rights Committee in 2011, it has persistently refused to recognise Traveller ethnicity, a group that visited the justice committee this week and the previous week. If we were to recognise their ethnicity, it would help members of the Traveller community towards full employment and full enjoyment of their human and constitutional rights. At the moment, they are completely marginalised. Listening to John Bosco Conama, I was taken aback. It was amazing and not something I had thought so much about. The manner in which deaf people have been marginalised and discriminated against all these years beggars belief. Hopefully, this will change.

The last time a Bill on Irish Sign Language was introduced in 2013, the Government refused to allow it on the grounds that not enough services were in place for the legislation to be put into effect. This obviously sounds bad. Surely the introduction of legislation could give the impetus needed to change the structure of our public services to make them more accessible to deaf people. Rather than keep on using the excuse that we cannot supply the services to make it happen, we should bring it in and then the pressure will be on to do what is right.

The Flemish Sign Language was recognised in 2006 by the Flemish Parliament. A sign of the progress that has been made is the presence of Helga Stevens, who is deaf, as a parliamentarian in the Flemish Parliament and more recently as a Member of the European Parliament. Perhaps I should not wish it on them, but perhaps some of the visitors in the Gallery might be in here as Members in a few years' time. It is not a job I would recommend.

We should waste no more time in recognising Irish Sign Language, but we need to give some consideration to the practicalities of it. The regulation of the teaching of Irish Sign Language by the proposed Irish Sign Language council must be done in such a way as to avoid disenfranchising existing Irish Sign Language teachers. I was approached by a member of the public who is deaf and who is an Irish Sign Language teacher. While he was very positive about any moves to recognise Irish Sign Language, he expressed concern over the proposed teacher registration requirements. Currently the only registration course available is at the Centre for Deaf Studies and is a two to four-year full-time course which effectively rules out someone working elsewhere for the duration. Requiring all Irish Sign Language teachers to register in this way could be overly onerous, both financially and in terms of time commitment.

Currently there are two options for learning Irish Sign Language under Signature and Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, which many Irish Sign Language teachers use. If these were not to be recognised under the new legislation, it could create problems for those who use them as their source of income. Given the already lower employment rate among deaf people, any measures taken must not jeopardise existing jobs in this area.

I hope the next time I have the opportunity to talk to some of the people in the Gallery I might be able to use my hands a bit better to communicate with them.

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