Joe McHugh (Fine Gael)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Tá lúcháir ormsa go bhfuil deis agam ceist na Gaeilge a phlé anseo anocht. Tá meas mór agam ar an Ghaeilge. Rugadh agus tógadh in aice le Gaeltacht Ros Goill mé, áit a bhfuil éacht mhór déantá ag an phobal an Ghaeilge a choinneáil beo, a fhorbairt agus a chur chun chinn.

Tá comharthaíocht agus fógraíocht le feiceáil i nGaeilge. Tá an teanga le cloisteáil níos mó inniu ná mar a bhí deich mbliana ó shin. Tá imeachtaí ar siúl go rialta agus tá cúrsaí Gaeilge ar fáil ag gach leibhéal, chomh maith le cúrsaí céime sa Ghaeilge, faoi láthair.

Chaith mise 16 bliana ag foghlaim na Gaeilge ar scoil. Ní raibh córas mhúineadh na Gaeilge ró-chairdiúil ag an am sin agus níl mise ach óg. Caithfear amharc ar an chóras oideachais ó thaobh na Gaeilge de.

I am delighted to be able to say a few words as Gaeilge agus as Béarla. I mentioned what is happening at grassroots level. I live in Rosguill on the border of a Gaeltacht area in Donegal. Unfortunately, I was not born in the Gaeltacht. If I had been, I would have more muinín in terms of my ability to express myself through Irish.

There is a lot going on in my region and a community development group, an Irish language group, runs many courses for the people of the area. Much of its work is voluntary and it receives some Gaeltacht funding, etc. There is a complete revival of the Irish language because people decided to stop talking about its decline and not to focus on the negativity. I cannot remember the beautiful word Senator Ó Murchú used for negativity. The Irish language group decided to get together and run certificate courses at local level. Some years later, people wanted to progress further and began to do diploma courses. Now, in conjunction with Magee College in Derry, they have begun to do degree courses in the Irish language. This is an example of the positive work of the Irish language movement. I assume the same is happening in other rural areas. It is a bottom-up approach and it is important to focus on it.

The Minister will be aware that Oideas Gael in Gleann Cholm Cille is very much a private entrepreneurial project. The director, Liam Ó Cuinneagáin, decided on his own that there is money to be made from the Irish language, although that may not have been his primary motivation. From knowing him I believe his primary motivation was to help revive the language and keep it alive in the area. Hundreds of thousands of people have entered the doors of Oideas Gael in Gleann Cholm Cille. It is important to mention that the mother of the leader of Fine Gael, Deputy Kenny, was born in Gleann Cholm Cille. When Deputy Kenny speaks passionately about the Irish language, he is doing so because he has a fondness for it and an appreciation of its importance.

The Irish language is alive and well in Gleann Cholm Cille because mná tí are making money out of it and communicating through it. The people attending Oideas Gael are primarily not from Donegal and many come from all over the world. I was at the centre three summers ago and met people from Japan, North Korea, China and Europe, including Britain and Northern Ireland. There is a massive influx from Northern Ireland, where, it is important to note, Irish is not a compulsory A level subject.

This is what is happening at the level of private enterprise. There are other developments at this level, including the setting up of Café Una on Kildare Street by a Donegal woman. The Minister might get a chance to visit it. The proprietor prints her menus in Irish and is trying to facilitate Irish speakers in the restaurant. The staff, not all of whom are from Donegal, communicate through Irish. This is a case of private enterprise helping to keep the language alive. This is good and will continue to happen.

The Government should be congratulated on the supports it has made available to TG4 and to the Gaelscoil movement. The Acting Chairman has very good friends in Ballyliffin in north Inishowen who are native Irish speakers. The unfortunate point about Inishowen, a landmass the size of County Louth, is that it has no Gaeltacht, yet there are still people who communicate through Irish in Urris, the outskirts of Ballyliffin, Tulla and other northern parts of the peninsula. Perhaps we could re-examine this and determine the level of Irish being used in the area.

The Minister may be aware that there is a movement in Buncrana pushing very strongly for a Gaelscoil in the town — the proposal may be on the Minister's desk. It is a voluntary movement involving parents and is in its initial stages. We should acknowledge that there are people on the peninsula who want to send their children to an all-Irish school.

There should not be a political debate or toing and froing regarding the Irish language. We are all singing from the same hymn sheet and want to preserve the language. I got caught in the middle of a debate over signposts that turned into a liathróid polaitiúla, which is scandalous. A person who wants to contribute to the debate on the Irish language should not be prevented from doing so because he or she cannot speak it. Signposts are very important to some people because they allude to a place's history and connect it to the land and generations past. However, when debating this issue, we must be positive and allow people to contribute.

Six years ago at a conference in Vienna I met an interpreter from Liverpool who could speak 14 different languages. I never met a man more passionate about the Irish language. He asked why we are not all speaking it and said that, of his 14 languages, it is the most beautiful in which he has communicated. He wondered why we were not developing a grá for it and pushing the agenda in this regard. He referred to the way in which the language was taught by rote learning, whereby students must learn chunks and chunks of depressing poems. Although they may be part of our history, why is there not a choice of more lively material? I learned Caisleáin Óir inside out by rote. It is about a man who left a poor woman waiting for him up in Clochán Liath. She had to spend all her life waiting for him when he went away to earn his money and when he came back and saw her he thought she looked too old and fecked off again — sorry for my language. This is depressing stuff and the kind of stuff we are offering to our students in secondary school. Let us liven it up.

There are some beautiful words in the language.