Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have come at this question in five or six different ways at different times. I want to make it absolutely explicit that I am not talking about Irish-medium childcare settings. That goes without saying, though they should be provided as a basic human right to those who require them. The websites should also be provided, but I do not see too many two year olds reading websites. I am referring to the whole remit of childcare, because all these children are going to go to primary school and will have to start learning Irish there, but they have a much greater ability to learn Irish at two or three years old than at five years of age. Every year that we do not expose them to a second language, we lose a unique opportunity. Children have no problem learning languages, unlike adults. Is an effort going to be made to encourage the use of the Irish language in all childcare facilities across the country through songs, poetry and little rhymes? We should teach these children little sayings that anyone with an elementary knowledge of the language could teach. Are we going to have a programme in English-language crèches and childcare facilities to encourage the use of bilingualism? A child who learns two languages early will learn a third, fourth and fifth language much easier later in life.

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