Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Faoi cheist Bhille na dTeangacha Oifigiúla, bhí argóint idir mé féin agus an tAire toisc gur chuir sé scríbhinn amach anseo agus téarmaí teicniúla ann nár thuig mé ariamh agus nach dtuigfeadh éinne sa Ghaeltacht ach oiread. An dearcadh taobh thiar de Bhille na Teangacha Oifigiúla, agus is cosúil go bhfuil sé beagáinín caillte, ná go mbeadh gach seirbhís a bhí ag teastáil ar fáil do phobal na Gaeilge agus, faoi leith, do phobal na Gaeltachta trí Ghaelainn agus nár chóir go mbeadh ar dhuine ar bith ón Ghaeltacht Béarla a úsáid faoi bhrú agus baint aige nó aici le córas an Stáit toisc nach bhfuil an córas ábalta seirbhís a chur ar fáil trí Ghaelainn. Sin sprioc fiúntach gur fiú airgead a chaitheamh air. Ní hionann sin agus a rá go bhfuil muid le cáipéisí móra casta fada a aistriú go Gaelainn in ainm an athbheocháin nár tháinig riamh.

In other small countries like Denmark, they do not translate complicated technical documents into Danish, they learn English and speak Danish among themselves. We should focus our funding for the Irish language on the people who want to speak it. It is a scandal that we are spending a fortune on translating documents when children in gaelscoileanna or in the Gaeltacht cannot get text books in Irish. There is an issue of resources at stake.

The House could usefully debate the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's pre-budget submission. It raises the question of the habitual residency condition for provision of social assistance. The society states that people who have been given refugee status in the State are refused social assistance on the grounds that they are not habitually resident. I am not asking for an immediate response from the Acting Leader but that the matter be pursued with the Department of Social and Family Affairs. A person allowed to live here because he has been persecuted in his own country should be treated as someone with habitual residency.

An article in The Irish Times this morning tells the story of a young boy from Croatia who ended up in that awful place in Artane in the 1950s. He spoke Italian and he wrote a letter to the Vatican describing what was happening to him. He is now seeking a copy of that letter from the Vatican and the Vatican, a state with which we have diplomatic relations, has refused to give this man a copy of the letter he wrote on the grounds that the archives are secret. The Minister for Foreign Affairs should pursue this matter. We have heard so much about the new compassion and understanding of the question of child abuse but we are suddenly presented with a spectacle of rigid bureaucracy. I invite the Minister for Foreign Affairs to raise this matter with the Vatican Secretary of State and say that all the man wants is the letter he wrote 50 years ago. It is the very least that institution that now claims to understand the enormity of what was done in it by some of its servants to children should respond with some humanity.