Sean Barrett (Independent)

Arising from the report today from the Royal Irish Academy on the lack of foreign languages here - apparently, apart from Scotland we are the most single language country in the world - and our failure to join the European Union linguistically when committing to it in 1973, will the Leader take up this issue with the Minister for Education and Skills? I gather that the proposals to have language teaching at first and second level were victims of the recession in the 1920s and 1930s and were, probably, displaced by the emphasis on Irish as a written rather than a spoken language, which took up so much of the curriculum. In recent times, languages have been displaced by the excessive emphasis on science and engineering, the growth of managerialism in Irish education, the downgrading of arts faculties and the closure of many language departments, some of which had been forcibly amalgamated. It is important that the Minister discusses the crisis in foreign languages in Irish education with language teachers, not with the quangos, the university heads or bodies with the word strategy in the title. The request by the academy for a strategy on foreign languages illustrates the problem. Strategy is a Greek word based on the destruction of material in factories or the art or science of conducting a war. The misuse of the word strategy in Irish education on an hourly basis shows we are indeed deficient in our knowledge of languages from other countries. I hope the Minister will consult with those directly involved - an máistir agus an múinteoir - and get into the classrooms where we have a serious problem in respect of languages.