Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I agree with him that this will not happen of its own accord. The Government has signed up to this. The legislation is in place and we will all have to work together to meet this goal. There are dedicated recruitment and promotion competitions targeted at Irish language speakers. As the Deputy has rightly said, this in itself is not enough. Last year, PAS held general Civil Service competitions for individuals with fluency in Irish for clerical officer and higher executive officer level. Today PAS is launching an Irish executive officer competition. We are dependent on the quality of applicants and the availability of a pool of people to apply who can meet the requisite level of competence. In addition, we are investing significantly in providing training for existing civil servants. Irish language training courses continue to be made available for new hires and all existing civil servants via One Learning, the learning and development centre for the Civil Service based in the Department. Close to 500 such enrolments took place in 2021. I accept the Deputy's overall point that this has to be a cross-government approach, including through further and higher education.

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