Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have not used that name since I was in school. Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Gabhaim buíochas le Sinn Féin as an tairiscint seo. Irish is a beautiful language with a cultural identity with which many people want to identify but do not because of the challenges they had in learning Irish in our education system. Our cultural identity with the Irish language is seeing a renaissance of late and we have a beautiful movie, "An Cailín Ciúin", with which many people engaged. Thanks to Kneecap, we have music as Gaeilge that appeals to people of all ages and is bringing young people into a cultural movement as Gaeilge.

Two summers ago, I went to Oideas Gael in nGleann Cholm Cille in the Gaeltacht in Donegal. Bhí sé go hiontach. Bhí daoine as an nGearmáin, Meiriceá agus gach áit in Éirinn i mo rang. Bhí muid ag foghlaim Gaeilge le chéile. I went back last year and some of the same people were there. We brushed off the rustiness of the Gaeilge and learned more. I hope to do it again this year although I will probably have to book sooner. It may be booked out because so many people are now going to these courses. We need to encourage as many people as possible to go to courses in Irish to shake off their rustiness.

We must look at our education system and see how we can improve the way Irish is taught. We need to evaluate the outcome that the curriculum is focusing on. What are the educational outcomes that we want our system to have? The failure is that students who go to primary school for eight years, learn Irish all the way up, and then learn Irish for five or six years in secondary school, do not have the language at the end of the process. The removal of the oral Irish examination from the junior cycle stifles fluency going into the leaving certificate. We need our students to know not only about the beauty of the poetry and stories we have in Irish. They also need to be able to go to the chipper and order chips and a spice bag, as well as having meaningful conversations in Irish. We need to resource our trainee teachers to be able to teach as Gaeilge. It would be fantastic if teacher training colleges were able to fully resource people who want to go into teaching in the most modern way and to teach Irish in line with the common European framework of references for languages. The framework should be used at all stages of our education system, as it is for other languages, such as the Deutsche Sprachdiplom for German and the DELF for French. The Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge, TEG, is available and should be used. It is a way for someone to demonstrate the level of his or her Irish and is recognised internationally.

The system of exemptions for children and young people with additional needs requires modernisation and needs to be revised in line with how other languages are taught in schools. We also need to take away the stigma and acknowledge that taking Irish away from those children with additional needs is not the correct answer. We need to focus on how we are going to do that better in the future. We also need children to go to the Gaeltacht. Perhaps the education system does not fit young people who are learning Irish in the school system but the Gaeltacht seems to be able to include people from all over the place. I went to the Gaeltacht. I had not spoken the language in ages and learned loads of Irish. We must encourage people to learn to language and to speak the language.

As somebody mentioned earlier, we need to be protecting our mná tí to host children and young people in the Gaeltacht. We need to support them because if there is nowhere to stay, no one can go.

We need to protect our Gaeltacht areas in order for them to thrive. We need to ringfence the funding and supports they need. The issue of housing in Gaeltacht areas is important. If there are no homes to live in, Gaeltacht areas are going to depopulate. Those areas will not have native speakers who might go into our education system to share their love of the language and pass down our cultural identity through the Irish language. We need to ensure that people from Gaeltacht areas are encouraged to go into teaching. The best way we can improve the use of the Irish language is to stop the stigma about not being good enough or being afraid. Perhaps we have those feelings as a hangover from our school days when we did not get it perfect. We have talked quite a lot in this Chamber since the beginning of the term about who has Irish and who does not. If we are all trying, and everyone accepts that, it is the most important thing.

Molaim do dhaoine triail a bhaint as an gcúrsa Gaeilge. Is iontach an spraoi é, agus leathnaíonn sé an intinn. I encourage everybody to go to an Irish course. It engages the brain and is a lot of craic. We are only going to take that amount of time.

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