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

I welcome anybody improving their Irish but I am a realist. I am very hard-headed about this. There are approximately 100,000 daily Irish speakers in the country. There are interesting standards laid down in Canada on this issue. To provide a service competently through the Irish language people would need to be daily Irish speakers. They would need to be absolutely at home with the language. There is no point in advertising the jobs if we have not made comprehensive plans that there would be people with the competencies to apply for the jobs. The plan should focus on the higher education sector as well as Gaelscoileanna. We are a bit better off at second level and primary level than we are at third level. This is one little step we need to challenge. Will there be a comprehensive all-of-government response to make sure that when the jobs are advertised there are people with a real competency in Irish to apply for them?

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