Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Irish language is important to me, despite not having any Irish. It is so important I ensured my daughter could get access to a Gaelscoil and I hope in September of this year to take up my place in Maynooth to learn Irish. I am not very optimistic about my ability but I will definitely give it one final shot.

Growing up I knew something was missing from what I gained in school. I felt that my language was missing and I felt very attached to something I could not even speak. I felt really hard done by in how weak the English stream schools are in enhancing the speaking of Irish in students. In saying that, I know I was an early school leaver so it may have been impossible to teach me anything at that stage. I held on to the ambition to want to speak Irish.

Anybody who appreciates the Irish language wants to be in a position where we could move to being a bilingual nation. That should be the effort but when we create elitism through quotas involving parents and grandparents, we are isolating language and making it inaccessible to a large portion of society. My daughter is fluent in Irish and I want her to create a family of Irish speakers. If she speaks Irish at home with her children I will have broken the trend of not having access to our national language.

Quotas should be introduced when people are at a disadvantage rather than when they are already at an advantage. If a parent or grandparent has a high level of education and access to language, the child in question is already at an advantage in society. I fully support the amendment, which I have co-signed, but I speak more to the section in general. I indicate my intention to introduce an amendment on Report Stage relating to quotas for admissions of students who do not have Irish as a home language to Irish language schools. This uses the quota in another way, leading to positive discrimination.

I rang around to Irish schools yesterday asking about definitions. They have a 10% quota for minority groups but Scoil Chaitlín Maude, which Jaylynn attends, does not adhere to any of those guidelines, so most of its students have absolutely no Irish within their families. It wants to expand Irish across communities. Other communities may not be as fortunate in more middle class environments. Some of the schools placed in more disadvantaged areas recognise the educational disadvantage of parents coming through a school. I will leave it at that but on Report Stage I will table an amendment to have a quota from the other direction relating to socioeconomic and educational disadvantage in parents, particularly the lack of the Irish language in the family.