John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 216: To ask the Taoiseach the amount which has been spent by his Department in bringing into effect the provisions of the Official Languages Act 2003. [30523/05]

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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As part of its commitment to the principles of quality customer service, my Department has always sought to ensure that customers who wish to conduct their business through Irish can do so. Expenditure on providing such services, therefore, cannot be considered as arising exclusively from the provisions of the Official Languages Act, as they also arise from our existing commitments to our customers as outlined in our customer charter, which states: "We will ensure that customers who wish to conduct their business through Irish can do so."

My Department was among the first of the public bodies to draft schemes under the Official Languages Act in relation to the delivery of our services to the public in Irish. My Department's scheme for the years 2005 to 2008 was published on 26 July 2005 and will commence on 1 September 2005. It is not expected that implementation of the scheme will give rise to substantial costs additional to those which were being incurred prior to its commencement. However, it has been possible to identify certain costs arising specifically from implementation of the Act to date. These are the translation of the scheme into Irish —€972 and the design and printing of the scheme —€5,250. This gives a total amount of €6,222 to date. We also anticipate that approximately €7,000 to €10,000 will be spent up to the end of 2005 on in-house Irish language and other related training for staff and on certain translation costs.