Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle. I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this important motion, which the Labour Party will support. Mar nach mbeidh mé in ann é seo a rá go hiomlán i gceart as Gaeilge, leanfaidh mé ar aghaidh as Béarla. As I do not speak sufficient Irish, I will continue my statement in English. I assure the House and those who spoke in Irish that it is something I am working on with my old Irish teacher from school. It is an important motion. I thank Sinn Féin for tabling it.

The Irish language is a great source of pride for our nation and people. It is a great symbol of our heritage and history. Many of us, although we cannot speak Irish as we would like, take great pride in it and in its use, even if it is only a cúpla focal. I have heard countless times from Irish people that they wished they spoke the language to a better degree. Of course, much of that learning is essential early in life in order to have a continued affinity, but that is not confined to early education and adult learning of the language has increased in recent years. I encourage anyone who feels that way to re-engage with learning the language.

However, I will speak to the main focus of the motion, which is the right to be educated in Irish. For too many, that is simply not an option, whether it is due to too few Gaelscoileanna or a lack of Irish language teachers, as the motion speaks to. My colleague, Deputy Bacik, is supporting local Gaelscoileanna in her area in the establishment of a Gaelcholáiste to serve the constituents of Dublin 2, 4, 6 and 8, and Dublin Bay South. The Labour Party has supported many Gaelscoileanna and Gaelcholáistí throughout the country. However, the point stands true that the lack of Irish teachers and Gaelscoileanna comes across in almost every facet of education in Ireland. We simply do not have enough teachers. That is the reality of it. Where will we get the teachers? Many teachers who are fluent or proficient in Irish have left Ireland to work overseas, where they can find better pay and conditions. Many of them are taking the resource of Irish learning with them.

I was a student in Mary Immaculate College. I studied in Thurles, where a bachelor's degree in education in many subjects, including Irish, is offered. A lot of my classmates in Thurles - we graduated in 2003 - have moved overseas, bringing that Irish learning with them. They are not teaching in our schools in Ireland. Many of them do not have any idea of whether they will come back. Young people and young teachers are leaving Ireland for many reasons, including housing, the cost of living, healthcare and pay and conditions. I am genuinely concerned about the education system because of that. These are problems that can be fixed. We can attract many people back to the Irish education system and in turn keep newly qualified teachers from immediately looking elsewhere as soon as they qualify.

We must look at the way we teach Irish in secondary schools. Last night, I spoke to a former Irish teacher of mine, who I eventually taught with. They genuinely believe there is far too much emphasis on the written language and not enough emphasis on the spoken language. Taking away the option of an oral exam at junior cert level damaged that opportunity even further. Teachers will tell you that the importance of being able to communicate through Irish is far better than learning poetry and prose.

Gaeilge is a central part of Irish life and culture and has a wider significance, not only in Ireland but across Europe, as one of the oldest spoken and literary languages still in use. More and more young people are trying to speak the language. There is an opportunity to grow and develop it further. However, we have to promote the language to young people. I am 25 years old. It is very rare that I hear it through social media, radio or TV. We need to advocate on behalf of the Irish language. That needs to come from the Government whether it is through Raidió Rí-Rá being on FM full time, and not just the token Seachtain na Gaeilge we have every year, which is effective but not effective enough.

I believe the Minister would agree with me that more has to be done. Several Deputies from Sinn Féin outlined that we have serious issues with accommodation and support services in our schools. I absolutely agree with them. I asked the Taoiseach earlier about a Gaelscoil in my hometown, Mallow, in my own constituency. It was sanctioned for 1.83 SNAs. I asked the Taoiseach whether there was a recruitment freeze affecting SNAs but he went about answering the question in a way completely different from what was desired. He literally could not tell me whether there was a recruitment freeze affecting SNAs. The school was told there was a freeze and that it could not employ the SNAs until September. The Minister and I might engage on that specific case, if that is at all possible. The lack of accommodation and supports is having serious consequences.

There are worrying signs concerning the Irish language itself. The last census showed the number of people who speak Irish daily or weekly had slightly declined. In Labour, we want to see every citizen given the opportunity to speak Irish daily. In a more globalised world, the future of our language requires attention. What is being done or has been tried is not working well enough to grow daily use of the language. We must review the 20-year strategy for the Irish language, which began in 2010, and we must now begin a new plan to take us to 2050. We need to plan now for the 20-year plan from 2030.

I would like to see an ambitious campaign to promote the spoken use of the Irish language, with the goal of growing daily use. We can take examples from countries that have worked well to revive language use. We can learn best practice in Wales and elsewhere to launch a new effort to promote everyday use of spoken Irish. We must ensure citizens can access all government services in Irish and provide increased support to grow the language on a shared-island basis. We can put in place a recruitment plan to increase the number of Irish language speakers in the public services, but particularly in education, because that is where it needs to come from. We need to give the children the opportunity to be educated through Irish and the right thereto. Right now, that is just not possible for the majority of students across this country.

We can introduce schemes to encourage businesses to provide a service through Irish. We need to increase funding and staffing resources for language planning, support the creation of urban Gaeltachtaí where speaking Irish is prioritised, and provide a subsidised translation service to encourage more private and voluntary bodies to produce bilingual documents and communications. We are and continue to strive to be a bilingual country. That is the reality of it. We can take examples from other multilingual countries, like Canada, and develop proposals to encourage bilingual packaging and labelling. These are small changes but they still contribute to the daily use of the language across demographics in society.

We must ensure leaving certificate reform leads to radical change in the approach to the learning of the Irish language, giving particular recognition to native and fluent speakers of the language and enhancing the attractiveness of studying it in a new and progressive manner. We must see new training routes, grants and funding for extra courses to support teachers to gain stronger levels of Irish.

I want to give the Minister an example of someone I know who was to become an Irish teacher. She did one year of the two-year PME in UCC and went to a school but left the teaching profession because she did not feel enough emphasis was on the Irish language within the school community. That is the reality of it. We have teachers who are absolutely indebted to the language they are trying to speak. They are trying to get across to the students they are teaching but the reality is that students are not engaging because of the education system we have.

We in the Labour Party want to see a national centre for learning Irish, modelled on the Welsh example, and develop free Irish language courses for adults and new Irish citizens and immigrants, alongside adult education courses delivered in Irish. We would like to see increased funding for scholarships for students to attend the Gaeltacht, starting first with DEIS schools. A DEIS+ initiative was announced yesterday with no timeline or budget. There is no idea as to when it is going to be rolled out, leaving students in limbo. It was a PR stunt with no substance behind it. I absolutely welcome the initiative, however. It is absolutely fantastic but it would be great to have some substance forthcoming. Perhaps we need to begin in this regard with the DEIS schools by giving scholarships and opportunities to students in our most disadvantaged areas.

Finances or class should not prevent any person from learning Irish. I do not mean just any person but any child. No child should be prevented from learning Irish because of finances or a lack of accommodation in a school. It is as simple as that. If we are trying to promote our language but preventing children across the country from having the opportunity to learn their native language because of a lack of finances, accommodation or resources, what are we doing in this Chamber at all? We should be giving them the opportunity. It must be an opportunity available to all of us.

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