James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I do not disagree at all. The Deputy mentioned University of Galway and a seminar that was there over the summer. It has some work under way with the Higher Education Authority and my Department on demand for Irish courses. The HEA is engaged in using the university as the lead on it to research the demand for Irish-language courses in third level institutions to inform the planning, development and offering of such courses. There have been some initiatives such as "mo thráchtas i mbeagán focal", the three-minute thesis competition, which launched this autumn. It invites postgraduate students to present their research in three minutes, using one slide, as Gaeilge. That is promoting the use of language in postgraduate studies but we need a lot more than that. That is one welcome initiative but I agree that we need to go further.

I am committed to exploring this, taking it further and advancing it. The Welsh model is certainly one we can look at and learn from. I am happy to take that away and engage with the Deputy further on it.

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