Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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18. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in view of the recent criticisms of the conduct of members of An Garda Síochána by an Coimisinéir Teanga, the progress that has been made as regards the commitment in the 20 years strategy on the Irish language to strengthen the position of Irish as an internal working language in Gaeltacht areas and among other Irish speaking units in services to the community; and the discussions he has had with the Department of Justice and Equality on same. [19287/13]

Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will understand, therefore, that it would not be appropriate for me to express any view in relation to this area of the Coimisinéir's work. The Deputy will understand, therefore, that it would not be appropriate for me to express any view in relation to this area of the Coimisinéir's work. However, I should point out that the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030 recognises the need for the development and strengthening of language awareness and language training programmes so that a higher proportion of public service staff, including members of An Garda Síochána, will have the ability to provide services in Irish to customers, including those located in Gaeltacht areas. In this context, the Strategy proposes that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Public Appointments Service should devise appropriate arrangements over time to increase the cohort of public servants who are functional bilinguals, having regard to the present constraints on public sector recruitment.

The Strategy also provides for these arrangements to be supported by the development, within the existing overall national qualifications framework, of an independent, standards-based accreditation system for Irish language competency within the public service so as to support the delivery of quality services to the public in both Irish and English.

Clearly, the implementation of initiatives such as these would significantly advance the objective of enhancing the delivery of public services in Irish in a satisfactory manner. My Department is in discussion with relevant stakeholders, including the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, with a view to progressing this objective, while taking account of the significant resource restraints at this time. As a first step, my Department recently signed a Service Level Agreement with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the provision of Irish language training and proficiency testing for the civil service and certain public service organisations.. The purpose of this agreement is to support staff in developing their proficiency in the Irish language and to enhance the capacity of the civil service and other bodies to provide services in Irish to the public.

I should also point out that in the context of the overall implementation of the Strategy, officials of my Department have conducted bilateral meetings with their colleagues in relevant government departments, including the Department of Justice and Equality, in order to promote the language awareness agenda.