Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his detailed response.

I will start by addressing a point suggested by Deputy Harty that seeking to have public warnings and public communications in Irish is somehow a sop to political correctness. I do not believe it is. The Irish language is important and we need to take it seriously. We need to recognise there are people who live through Irish, who think, shop and consume through Irish and they have a right to be warned through their active language. I must disagree that this is some concept of political correctness.

Deputy Ó Cuív laid out well the point on the labelling. I would like to see it on the labelling for all of the right reasons. However, under no circumstances do I want to hold this Bill up. Therefore, I will withdraw the amendment.

As to the legal challenge, I am sure whoever brought in the warnings on the cigarette packets got legal advice as well that they would be fine and that legal advice turned out to be untrue. We will see. I hope this time it is correct. I will withdraw amendment No. 8 regarding the bilingual labelling and acknowledge the Minister is accepting the bilingual requirements for both the website and the signage.

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