Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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147. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the way in which his Department and agencies under his remit facilitate persons wishing to engage with their services through the Irish language; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21900/21]

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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148. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if all forms issued by his Department and agencies under his remit are available in both the Irish and English languages; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21918/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 147 and 148 together.

My Department is fully committed to its 2019-2022 Irish Language Scheme, which was prepared in accordance with Section 15 of the Official Language Act 2003.  The Scheme sets out in detail the extent to which services are currently available through Irish in my Department and identifies areas for future enhancement.  The Scheme builds on the principles of Quality Customer Service and on the commitments in the Department’s Customer Charter and Customer Action Plan to ensure that customers who wish to conduct their business through Irish can do so either in writing, by telephone or in person.   

In order to facilitate a customer who wishes to conduct his/her business through Irish in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, my Department commits to:

- Reply in Irish where communication is received in Irish;

- Publish certain core Departmental documents simultaneously in Irish and English.

In order to ensure that my Department is accessible and capable of engaging with all customers proficiently, Irish Language Training is provided by the Learning and Development Unit of the Department through OneLearning, the Civil Service Learning and Development Centre. This training is being delivered to ensure that the Department has a cohort of staff who can assist business units to respond to clients who may wish to communicate through the medium of Irish. 

With regard to availability of forms in Irish, the existing commitments in the Department's Scheme include the publication simultaneously in Irish and English of documents setting out public policy proposals, audited accounts or financial statements, annual reports and strategy statements. In accordance with our Scheme, we take every opportunity in our day-to-day interactions with customers to promote the services we provide in Irish including making forms available bilingually and, where not available, engaging proactively with the customer to provide the services in Irish.  

Many of the Agencies and Offices have developed their own Customer Charters, Customer Action Plans and Language Schemes, where appropriate. Current projects across a number of Offices and Agencies will see more forms available bilingually in 2021.

My Department is committed to monitoring on an ongoing basis the level of demand for services to be provided in Irish and responding to those demands in a planned, coherent and accessible way.