John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 92: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will consider allowing schools to select between receiving departmental circulars and publications in either Irish or English, instead of receiving both; if he will provide an estimate of the annual cost savings that would accrue from the reduced requirement for printing and distribution; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10436/12]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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It is a requirement of the Official Languages Act that documents setting out public policy proposals, annual reports, statements of strategy, and matters considered to be of major public importance, are communicated by Government Departments in both Irish and English. Given this Act, and the obligations under the Education Act to promote bilingualism, to promote Irish as a community language in Gaeltacht areas, and to provide support services through Irish to schools, it is the general policy of the Department to issue circulars to schools in both Irish and English. The exceptions are very large documents or publications, where the Irish version would be sent to Irish medium schools only but also publicised on the internet. Normally, both versions are issued together in the same envelope, so that extra costs are minimised. In addition, my Department's section managers plan the distribution of materials to coincide with other scheduled distributions to either primary or post primary schools in order to keep postage costs to a minimum. It is not possible to identify the costs of Irish publications separately.