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

I thank the Minister for his offer of engaging with me bilaterally and I will certainly take him up on it. I listened to his reply but we are a long way from where we need to be. I have a pragmatic and practical view of this. It is worth noting that NUI Galway, or UCG as it was at the time, was only kept in the 1920s to provide an Irish language university. Even into the 1960s most of the professors had the capability of teaching a wide range of subjects through Irish and there was quite a bit of educating through Irish going on. As the Minister knows, there has been a huge growth in Gaelscoileanna and Gaelcholáistí at second level but regression has happened over 40 years at third level, and even over the last ten years there has been regression in the scope and number of Irish language courses available. How many students are in third level education in the whole country? That should be measured against the figure of 73 the Minister gave. If he could tell me how many students are in third level education we would get an idea of how minuscule Irish language provision is.

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