Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 75: To ask the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs if he will take action on foot of the publication of a report (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16648/09]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I am unable to offer a substantive reply to the Deputy's question without revealing details of the report referred to. My understanding of the rules of the House regarding a "details supplied" question is that it would not be in order for me to do so, unless the Deputy agrees.

If the Deputy will name the report, I will be happy to give a detailed answer.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Irish language and the Irish people. I am delighted to name the report and would like to hear the Minister's response.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will have to ask me a question. I will be delighted to give a detailed answer. I cannot be blamed if the Deputy puts down a question with "details supplied" when he really intended to name the report.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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We have had more reports about the Irish language than people speaking the language. The Minister reported recently to me that €800,000 had been spent on consultants to draft the Irish language report yet that report has not yet been published.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It has.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I understand that it has not been published yet.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Irish language report has been published.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Minister should allow the Deputy to put the question.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise but I get upset when Deputies are ill informed.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am referring to the strategy for the Irish language. The Minister is getting a report done for which he famously set up a Cabinet sub-committee. How many times has that sub-committee met? I know it met once because I have raised the matter here several times but how many times has it met since? When will that report be published? It has cost €800,000 in consultants' fees. Does the Minister not know enough people who speak the Irish language? Why does he need to spend taxpayers' money on consultants? We all know the problems around the language. There are three Gaeltachts in my constituency and Irish is spoken in only one part of one of them, Ceathrú Thaigdhe, as the Minister's recent report has shown. I support the Irish language but while the Minister, the Government and the Taoiseach talk a good game about it, this strategy was supposed to have been published, and up and running. When will it be released and when will we know about its findings?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Funnily enough I have great sympathy for the Deputy and his questions. Ceist í, marbh le tae agus marbh gan é. Deputy O'Shea is always asking about expert opinion so rightly or wrongly we decided because this is a major 20 year strategy that we would get expert opinion, including international opinion on sociolinguistics, to advise us in the preparation of the strategy. I have a draft of the strategy and it is intended to publish this as soon as possible. The next meeting of the committee, as the Deputy will find in the reply to one of his parliamentary questions today, will take place next month. We are making progress on this. The draft report is being read and it is hoped to publish it in the reasonably near future. I will not put a date on it today and I will not give my stock answer "before next Christmas" because that covers any day from tomorrow until next Christmas Day so we will not play that little teasing game. It will be done as fast as possible.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Will it be done within 20 years?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It will be done a lot sooner than the Deputy thinks. I will surprise him some day just when he is getting very impatient. It is a 20 year strategy and we want to get it as right as possible. It will also include the response to the stádas theanga eolaoíchta in the Gaeltacht. This will be the big throw at having a proper strategy. I have sympathy for the Deputy in respect of the cost. If it was not a 20 year strategy and if I did not think that Deputy O'Shea would be asking all sorts of questions about whether the experts agreed with what the Government put into the strategy, we might have skipped some of the experts' costs but there is a saying in Irish "marbh le tae agus marbh gan é" and I do not know whether I should have had the tae or fanacht gan é but sin mar——

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The Government consulted plenty of experts on the economy but they did not do too much for us.

Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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I find the outburst about expert opinion bizarre and extraordinary. I take no part of the blame for the Minister's dithering on the Irish language because on some occasion or occasions I have asked about expert opinion. The Fr. MacGréil report states that the biggest challenge facing the Irish language is to move from ability to speak the language to usage of the language and the gap between the two.

I tabled a question for the Minister for Education and Science on this issue. Will the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs address that issue and if so when and how? I have not read the whole report but the point seems to come across strongly that there is a chasm between ability to speak the language and its use.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely. I could not agree more with the Deputy. Some time before it was published I read a draft of the report from end to end. It contains an incredible wealth of knowledge and I recommend that anybody who is interested in policy development in respect of the Irish language read it although it is heavy reading and contains quite a lot of detail.

We were willing to fund the other report because this is a series of reports undertaken by Fr. Micheál over 30 years. It offers something that one would not normally get, tracking over a 30 year period the usage and knowledge of the language and attitudes towards it, which is obviously very useful when we are building a 20 year strategy. I was anxious that this report would be in the public domain before we published the 20 year strategy because it is informing my view——

Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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I did not ask the Minister to do that. He is quoting me again on expert opinion. That was his own decision, not prompted by this side of the House.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely, but I did so on the Deputy's good advice.

Two things emerge from the report. First, the growth of the language in urban areas is significant and, second, the gap between knowledge and usage is not simply a fact of saying one should talk Irish. It seems to relate to opportunities to talk Irish in comhluadar — in other words, to interact with other people talking the language. This report is useful and certainly will be reflected in the 20-year strategy. The Deputy can take it that, sequentially, it is better that this report is published in order that we can build its recommendations into the strategy, thus taking account of the interesting recommendations that were made.