Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Aidan Matthews in his short poem, "The Death of Irish", captures graphically the cultural impoverishment we suffer if our language goes into terminal decline. It goes:

The tide gone out for good,

Thirty-one words for seaweed

Whiten on the foreshore.

Most of us here would support the Irish language and see it as an integral part of our culture. Most of us would like to see it stronger and more vibrant. Many of us would be willing, as today, to stand up and speak of the need to revive our native tongue. Unfortunately, not all of us feel comfortable standing up and making that speech as Gaeilge. While I commend those lucky enough to be able to do so, I do not in any way criticise those who cannot. It is not their fault. Rather, I am asking the obvious question. Why, after 14 years in school, can most people not speak Irish? It is not that Irish is necessarily a difficult language. Small children can pick it up very easily. Children from English-speaking homes who attend a naíonra for just one year have a better grasp of Irish than many who have spent 14 years supposedly studying the language. Why is it that many of us learned more in three weeks in the Gaeltacht than we did in the entirety of our secondary education? I have a first-hand example of this. My own daughter went to Coláiste Spleodar on Leitir Mealláin. She was picked up on the bus in Baile Átha Luain and there was no ceol as Béarla, no leabhair as Béarla and no caint as Béarla for three weeks. She is now fluent in Irish.

It seems abundantly clear that the greater the degree of immersion in a language, the better we understand it and the more we use it. Molaim an tAire Stáit for what he did last year. The earlier that this immersion begins, the better the outcomes are in terms of language fluency. If we truly want to do more than just pay lip service to the revival of the Irish language, what do we need to do in practical terms? First, we need to support the development of Gaelscoileanna wherever possible. The potential growth market for the Irish language is not in the Gaeltacht, but right across the country, and we can see this working. Second, we should be more creative in making our remaining schools more bilingual or in offering choices to children who do not necessarily have access to a Gaelscoil. If there are two classes for one year in a primary school, could one of them not be offered as Gaeilge? Could we not introduce bilingual teaching, for example, with Irish in the morning and English in the afternoon? Páistí would discuss stair, matamaitic, tíreolaíocht, sometimes as Béarla and sometimes as Gaeilge. Children do not seem to have a problem with this but adults do.

The focus throughout primary school should be on oral competence first, with literacy taking a lower priority. I have a lot more to say but I want to share my time with Senator O'Reilly. I would say that I believe that if we really do have a grá for the language and we really do want it to thrive, the one thing we must not do is nothing. Language decline typically goes through a number of stages. The longer we leave it before we react and engage, the more work we will have to do. We must act before the tide goes out.