Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies who have supported the amendment. I was hesitant to bring the amendment because I am very cautious given my own background and I can see the sense of the escape route. When I looked at the report and saw that it took ten years and that the Coimisinéir Teanga had to resort to the last weapon, an uirlis dheireanach a bhí aige, an tuarascáil a chur os comhair na Dála, d'athraigh mé m’intinn agus dúirt mé go raibh sé thar a bheith tábhachtach an leasú a chur chun cinn. I lost my caution when I read the report. I listened to the Coimisinéir Teanga when he came before us at the joint committee. When I heard what the Garda Commissioner said, there was an easpa tuisceana, a complete lack of understanding that the law had been broken and continues to be broken. That was very serious for me.

It is interesting because it comes back to what the Minister said, namely, that it might act as a constraint on resources. I will make two points about that. First, it might act as an inspiration or a motivation for the Garda to comply with the law and take all necessary steps, or even carry out a pilot project, something that would make the Garda see that they have to do something.

I have the report in English. When the complaint first arose, all nine gardaí that were assigned to the station in An Bun Beag had successfully passed the examination, yet it was freely acknowledged that eight of the nine were unable to deal with a member of the public through Irish. No argument was made that there were insufficient numbers of gardaí available. That argument was not made at all about the 13,000 members at the time having the necessary competence to properly comply with the statutory obligation. In fact, it was stated as an example in a report to the investigation that there was 100% compliance with the provision at stations in the Connemara Gaeltacht, which is not quite accurate. No argument was made about resources, but there was a complete lack of understanding.

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