Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I suggest this section of the Bill has exercised the House a little more than the Minister of State might have anticipated. It allows me to draw the attention of the House to an article that appeared in yesterday's The Irish Times. The article was written by Donncha Ó hÉallaithe, who worked until recently as a maths lecturer at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. Over the last ten years, he has conducted independent research into the use of Irish in Gaeltacht and non-Gaeltacht areas. I am not sure whether the Minister of State is familiar with the article, in which Mr. Ó hÉallaithe makes a number of interesting points. I would certainly commend it to him and to his officials. In the section of the article referring to the reasons the Government is not going ahead with the Údarás na Gaeltachta elections, Mr. Ó hÉallaithe notes that "the reason advanced for abolishing direct elections to Údarás na Gaeltachta, under the terms of this Bill, is to save some money". I think the Minister of State has made it clear from the outset that this is what this is about. The article continues:

The irony is that the Údarás elections cost much more than they should because of the failure of the Government to redraw the Gaeltacht boundaries. As well as that, the Government continues to pay a Gaeltacht allowance of €3,000 per annum to many teachers who happen to work in official Gaeltacht areas which are no more Irish-speaking than Clondalkin or Carlow. More realistic boundaries for the Gaeltacht would save money for the Government. More importantly, they would allow the language planning process being promoted in this Bill to concentrate efforts and resources on those few areas in which Irish has managed to survive as a community language for the last 2,000 years, and allow the promotion of Irish language networks in urban areas outside the traditional Gaeltacht.

We will have an opportunity to tease out some of the other points made by Mr. Ó hÉallaithe with the Minister of State in due course. I certainly think there is an obligation on the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to consider this alternative approach. If it is about saving money and nothing else, surely the redrawing of the boundaries is an obvious answer. According to other elements of the argument Mr. Ó hÉallaithe makes regarding this legislation, there will be no change to the status quo in the absence of the drawing up of a language plan, which is another issue entirely. I do not want to stray away from section 5. I suggest that the specific points made by Mr. Ó hÉallaithe deserve an answer. Does the Minister of State not agree?