Sean Barrett (Independent)

Go raibh maith agat. We are invoking the Anglo-Irish Agreement on this side of the House because of the traditions in Northern Ireland whereby Nationalists would discriminated against, not least in the Minister of State's adjoining city of Derry, and disgracefully so, and those rights were put in. I never thought I would be invoking it on behalf of Irish language speakers in this jurisdiction but it is there and we will use it. It was there to protect the minority within Northern Ireland. I would oppose any legislation to deprive 96,000 Unionist people in this State of a vote or 96,000 Nationalist people in Northern Ireland of a vote.

The Minister of State said he sent it to the other Departments. The last Attorney General outing on this, as the Minister of State, will know, was to advise that the Donegal South-West by-election was a discretionary item, which the Government could hold. It lost heavily in the High Court under Mr. Justice Nicholas Kearns. The Attorney General is not necessarily infallible in these matters. I would still appreciate an impact assessment as well.

The Minister of State mentioned the €500,000 the Government is saving by not having elections and I would ask him to reflect on this. Our GDP per head is approximately 11 times that of India. There is nobody in India saying "let us cancel the elections, they cost too much money". Democracy at our level of GDP per head should not be cancelled on money grounds. How will we hold our faces up in the international community because we cancelled an election to save €500,000? I utterly dispute that figure. No provision was made in the Estimates for the Minister of State's Department in the past two years for any election to Údarás na Gaeltachta. The last time an election was held, the figure was €300,000. The Minister of State's Department had plenty of opportunities to hold Údarás na Gaeltachta elections jointly with the presidential election or with referendums at minimal cost. Therefore, I dispute the €500,000 cost that has been put forward as the reason for not having these elections and that is what is causing concern.

If the Minister of State was to say the Department made the mistake and we will run the Údarás na Gaeltachta elections with the referendums that are pending, we would all join with him in this House to support an teanga Gaeilge, because it is that to which we are dedicated, North and South. He has been very badly advised to cancel elections to save money. Rinne the Office of the Attorney General, Oifig an Ard-Aighne, botún an-mhór maidir leis an cheist dheireanach a cuireadh whether voting is discretionary or whether people have rights. These people have language rights and those are enshrined. If we look to the UNESCO declaration of linguistic rights, all language communities have the right to organise and manage their own resources to ensure the use of their language for all functions in society.