Séamus Kirk (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the arrangements being contemplated to meet the language skills gap for recently announced enterprise projects for Dundalk, County Louth; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9132/13]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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There is considerable investment by my Department in language provision. A range of foreign languages are available on the curriculum in second level schools – French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Arabic – and the school system is producing a large supply of students who have studied foreign languages. Every year, over 30,000 students sit a European language for the Leaving Certificate, including around 26,000 in French, 6,700 in German and 4,000 in Spanish, with smaller numbers taking other languages. The availability of Transition Year and the option of school developed short courses proposed as part of junior cycle reform will provide opportunities for schools to provide additional languages, if they so choose.

Prospective students then have access to a wide range of further and higher education courses with a foreign language as either a core subject or in combination with a range of other disciplines. In addition, a number of foreign language programmes have been selected for funding through the Springboard initiative, which provides free part time higher places targeted at unemployed people in areas of identified skills needs. Employer input and research by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs informed the development and selection of these Springboard programmes.

Almost 12% of our post-primary students, as well as our general population, are of nationalities other than Irish. Many would have a mother tongue that is not English. These individuals also represent a potential valuable local resource for employers to draw upon. Leaving Certificate examinations are offered in a number of other non-curricular EU languages to students who meet certain criteria including that they speak the language as a mother tongue. Some 1,500 students took 16 additional languages in 2012.