Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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60. To ask the Minister for Finance the percentage of staff in his Department capable of dealing with the public in the Irish language; if there are training programmes in place for staff to improve their level of working Irish; the provision there is for other minority languages; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38624/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Department is fully aware of its obligations under the Official Languages Act 2003. The Department offers courses in Irish and other EU languages to staff of the Department in order to assist in dealing with queries and also to improve our communication when engaging with our EU colleagues.

The Department has celebrated Seachtain na Gaeilge in 2014 and 2015 and funding is put in place for staff to attend language courses, which include Irish, French and Italian, through the Refund of Fees Scheme.

The Department conducts its main business through English and Irish and the Department publishes its main reports online in Irish, including Summary of Budget 2016 Taxation Measures - Policy Changesas part of Budget 2016.

A Language and Qualifications survey was carried out during 2014 with staff of the Department and the results indicated that  2% of staff are capable Irish speakers who are happy to deal with members of the public or other Bodies, as required, through Irish.

An earlier survey within the Department revealed that in 2013 a total of fifteen members of staff dealt with written correspondence in Irish and two staff dealt with telephone calls in Irish, totalling 17 staff or 5.3% of the total staffing numbers.  While most dealt with only a few items (eleven staff dealt with three or fewer items), one member of staff dealt with more than nine instances of written correspondence during 2013.  In addition, three items of Ministerial correspondence were received and answered in Irish during 2013.