Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will take time to explain what is at stake. The backdrop to the provision is that on Committee Stage we discussed this issue. A number of Opposition Deputies were keen for us to introduce a provision to allow children with a level of fluency preferential access to Gaelscoileanna and ensure that it would be an acceptable basis and not breach the Equal Status Act. It was on that basis that I consulted, obtained legal advice and drew up an amendment. I will set it out before we make a decision on how to proceed.

The amendment provides that Gaelscoileanna or Gaelcholáistí can give priority if they are satisfied that a proposed entrant has achieved a reasonable level of age-related fluency and that that level of fluency will regress if the child does not gain access to a Gaelscoil or Gaelcholáiste, as the case may be. We do not seek to and do not differentiate in the amendment between how that level of fluency was acquired. We do not give naíonraí feeder school status. Therefore, we hinge it on a level of fluency established by the child, not on the child having the money to go to a naíonra. We do not want to give feeder school status to particular preschools because we are not doing so elsewhere. We also do not provide that there be an interview with the parents and do not say the school will have entry tests. We say instead that it is up to the parent to choose how to demonstrate that the child has achieved fluency. We also provide that where children have reached a level of fluency that will regress if they do not gain access to a Gaelscoil or Gaelcholáiste, they will not be ranked by fluency. It is establishing a level of fluency that will give them access.

I can understand what has been put forward in the amendments tabled by the Opposition. The proposal is that from within the group of children who have achieved a level of fluency, additional priority, above and beyond all those children who have a level of fluency, be given to a child who normally speaks to one of his or her parents in Irish in the home and who displays a minimum level of Irish associated with speaking Irish to one parent.

I do not have a profound objection to accepting amendments Nos. 76 and 77, as well as my own, amendment No. 75. There are some quibbles with the way they are drafted in terms of how one establishes what is normal communication between one parent and a child. A school can establish at some level that a child or a parent has a level of fluency, but it is harder to demonstrate that the parent normally speaks Irish to the child in the home. At second level one would be establishing a priority for a child from a feeder school, to which I have no profound objection.

The thinking behind our approach is that the State has an obligation to support the promotion of the language, but we do not want to prefer a group of children who acquired their language proficiency in talking to a parent, a grandparent or a brother or as the result of a big effort made by the family to immerse a child in the Irish language, even if the parent did not have the opportunity to speak it. We do not seek to distinguish them and that is the thinking behind our provision. I do not have a clear-cut view on whether it is satisfactory, legally, to give priority to someone who is defined as having spoken Irish to one of his or her parents in the home over someone who has the same level of fluency but who acquired it in a different way. That is an issue that needs consideration if the Deputies are convinced that the amendment I have developed is not sufficient.

We can do this in one of two ways. We could accept amendments Nos. 76 and 77, as well my own, amendment No. 75. Deputy Thomas Byrne proposes to give preference to someone who speaks Irish as their language in the home over and above a child who acquires it otherwise. He also proposes that a post-primary school accept evidence from a primary school principal that a child speaks Irish in order to carry on at second level. If I were to accept the Deputies' amendments, I would want to have them suitably scrubbed by legal advisers before we went with them to the Seanad where it might be necessary to amend them which would require us to come back here. After the discussion we had on Committee Stage, my officials and the Office of the Attorney General tried faithfully to get what had been sought. I am not opposed to going the extra distance-----

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