Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tairgim leasú Uimh. 20:

I leathanach 17, idir línte 15 agus 16, an méid seo a leanas a chur isteach: “Caighdeáin teanga sa tsainfháil phoiblí

9F.I gcás go ngabhfaidh comhlacht poiblí do phróiseas sainfhála poiblí lena bhféachfaidh an comhlacht poiblí le conradh a dhámhachtain as seirbhís phoiblí a sholáthar, ní foláir don chomhlacht poiblí sin a chinntiú go ndéanfar breithniú cuí ar chumas an pháirtí faoi chonradh na caighdeáin teanga do sheirbhísí pobal-inrochtana a leagtar amach in Alt 9E a chomhlíonadh, agus go dtabharfar ualú cuí don chéanna.”.

Ar an drochuair níl mo chuid Ghaeilge an-láidir. Mar sin, bheadh sé níos fearr má labhróinn i mBéarla. Given the high quality of Irish in the debate so far I have lost my nerve to try to speak in Irish but I will do so another time. My amendment is complementary to section 9E on public-facing services. I have had a lot of debate in these Houses previously on the public duty on equality and human rights and a lot of work has been done in that regard to establish that when a duty sits on a public body, it is important that this duty is carried through into the procurement process and into situations where the service might not be delivered directly but is being procured and delivered on behalf of a public body. For example, the public duty on equality and human rights has been established and my procurement Bill seeks to strengthen the reporting on this fact but it has been established by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission that the ultimate responsibility for a public duty being delivered sits on the public duty that does the procurement. In that regard I am proposing in this amendment to make sure that if a public body is procuring a public-facing service or contracting another body to deliver a public-facing service of the kind set out in section 9E: "where a person provides a public facing service on behalf of the public body", the body would address and provide the relevant language standards and that this will also be reflected in contracted services. With contracted services we need to ensure that in the request for design in the procurement process itself an: "appropriate consideration and weighting is given to the capacity of the contracted party to meet the language standards for public-facing services".

There is an important principle here that echoes what we know to be generally understood about other duties that sit on public bodies and services. There is also a practical matter and I have a sad example of where this does not happen, namely in the contracting out of regional employment services. There was a pilot for a request for tender earlier this year for employment services from the Department of Social Protection which did not include any weighting for capacity to deliver services in Irish. These are public-facing services and in many cases they provide services to vulnerable persons who may have been in long-term unemployment or who may be seeking training or employment supports. Not reflecting that when deciding who might deliver these services is a real gap but I know that a new request for tender is in preparation.

I am not talking about the Committee on the Irish Language, Gaeltacht and the Irish-speaking Community but the following example points to the same issue. The Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development and the Islands has requested that the new requests for tender on employment services would not go out before December because it has a number of concerns with the process.I will not talk about all the other concerns, but one of them is that it looks as though the new request, the contract for delivering employment services to the public, which is very much public-facing and will be covering places such as Galway, where Senator Kyne and I are from, as well as Connemara and the islands, will not have a weighting given to employment services or contracting parties that can show they are able and have the capacity to deliver those public-facing services around employment in Irish too, if that is the preferred language of a member of the public. That is a practical example of how this directly impacts Gaeltacht areas, although the right to be able to access a public-facing service in one's national language is not confined to Gaeltacht areas. However, it makes the issue of why this needs to be a weighting and a consideration more acute. Can the Minister of State clarify his interpretation of section 9E? Does it incorporate procurement? If not, I hope he would be amenable to considering accepting my amendment to insert a new section 9F, which would clearly specify that the provisions under section 9E include the procurement process and specifically spell out that appropriate consideration or weighting would be given to the capacity of a contracting service when deciding on whom to award a contract for public services.