Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)

Níl áthas orm labhairt ar an rún seo. Tá an Rialtas nua ag déanamh an rud céanna le gach píosa reachtaíochta a thagann os comhair an Tí agus ag déanamh rudaí ar bhonn ad hoc. Maidir leis an rún seo agus an chuid seo den Acht, section 46 refers to Acts of Oireachtas, it does not refer to developments plan, official translations or anything else. Let me read Article 25.4.4o of the Constitution:

I gcás an tUachtarán do chur a láimhe le téacs Bille i dteanga de na teangacha oifigiúla agus sa teanga sin amháin, ní foláir tiontú oifigiúil a chur amach sa teanga oifigiúil eile.

Where the President signs the text of a Bill in one only of the official languages, an official translation shall be issued in the other official language.

In my view this section is clearly unconstitutional and it might be wise for the President to consider that if the Bill is passed and she is asked to sign it into law. It seems to be completely unconstitutional that we have a legislative provision that allows the publication in any format in one official language only, whether it is Irish or English. This has nothing to do with how many people speak Irish or English or the very worthy comments of the Minister on the languages we should be teaching our immigrant population. It has nothing to do with county development plans or the excessive translations that go on there. This is about the Constitution and whether we adhere to it and whether we continue to do so. This is the only country in the world that cannot publish its legislation in both official languages at the same time. There are countries with three or four official languages and they are well capable of publishing legislation in their official languages. It is a crying shame and a national embarrassment that we cannot do this. It was raised and I am thinking of three Fine Gael Members, Senators Conway, Keane and Mullins, who spoke very eloquently before on this issue. I do not expect them to disobey the whip and I would not ask them to do it as I would not do it myself, but I plead with them to talk to their Ministers about this. It has happened on an ad hoc basis to a number of Bills before the Oireachtas. Now we have legislation which purports to amend the Official Languages Act, which is not within the domain of the Minister in my understanding. Has the Minister with responsibility for the Gaeltacht given his views? Will the Minister explain the views of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht on this issue? The Minister accused me, wrongly, yesterday of seeing a scandal around every corner. I think it is scandalous that we cannot publish legislation, as is required by the Constitution. This is not a question of whether something is ideal, as one Minister said last week when she said it would be ideal if we could publish it. It is a constitutional imperative; it is the right of the Irish people.

We must comply with the Constitution. We must give our national language the respect it deserves. If we are not prepared to publish legislation, the laws of the land, in both languages as we are required to do, how can we expect people to speak Irish and to try to develop the language? We can have all the debates we want about stádas na Gaeilge in this House but we cannot publish legislation in Irish. I am appealing to the Minister to withdraw this section and accept the amendments that have been tabled. It would be useful if legislation in both languages were published on the Internet. That is what our amendment requires. People do not purchase the Bills from the Stationery Office: a printed copy of this Bill costs €4.57. Everybody gets legislation off the Internet. That is the way of the world. If we are serious, we must react to modern times in complying with the Constitution. In complying with our culture, history, traditions and the future of the country, we should be requiring that our legislation is published in both official languages. I believe it is a requirement that we do so.