Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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108. To ask the Taoiseach 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. [38632/15]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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The primary focus of my Department's work is on dealings with Government and with other government departments and agencies. As a result, we do not experience a significant level of demand from the public for services in Irish.

A number of staff members in my Department have indicated that they have some proficiency in Irish and are competent to provide a variety of services in Irish to varying degrees. Of these, two officers with a high level of proficiency have been designated to provide services to the public in Irish, and this number is sufficient to meet the existing demand.

Training programmes in Irish are available to staff on request, or where a particular need has been identified.

From time to time we receive correspondence in languages other than Irish and English, although the volume of such correspondence is very low. These letters can normally be translated by staff members who have fluency in these languages, and we respond to such correspondence in English.