Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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116. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the steps taken since the enactment of the amended Official Languages Act 2021 to increase the intake of civil servants who are capable of doing their business through Irish and English; the number recruited to date in 2022 with such a competency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56384/22]

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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227. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform further to Parliamentary Question No. 123 of 16 June 2022, if he will provide a status update on his Department's work on the implementation of the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021 to date; the progress on reaching the target whereby at least 20% of staff recruited to public bodies are competent in the Irish language to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56428/22]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 116 and 227 together.

Some of the actions that my Department and the Public Appointments Service (PAS) are taking to increase the number of fluent Irish speakers in the civil service include:

1. Dedicated recruitment and promotion competitions targeted at Irish language speakers: PAS has held general civil service competitions for individuals with fluency in Irish at Clerical Officer, Executive Officer, Higher Executive Officer and Principal Officer level. The out-turn of these competitions shows that the number of fluent Irish speakers applying to join the civil service, or otherwise declaring a fluency in Irish, remains low.

I am advised by PAS that since the enactment of the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021 on 22 December last, a total of 49 candidates have been assigned from panels established from recruitment competitions - from Clerical Officer to Principal Officer level - where fluency in Irish was specifically required for the post in question and for which proficiency in Irish was tested as part of the PAS assessment process.

There are currently panels in place for Irish posts at CO, EO and HEO levels and these panels will be drawn from as requests are received from Departments and Offices. The CO panel is due to expire on 30th June 2023, the EO panel is due to expire on 29th February 2024 and the HEO panel on 31st December 2023. New competitions will be considered closer to the expiry date of each current panel.

In addition, some Departments or Government Officers may also have recruited fluent speakers directly under their local recruitment licence instead of through PAS.

2. In addition to new hires, existing civil servants are encouraged to pursue Irish language training courses via OneLearning - the Learning and Development Centre for the civil service based in my Department. Close to 500 such enrolments for such courses took place in 2021, with a further 583 enrolments to date in 2022.

3. The Irish Languages Services Advisory Committee, with representatives from my Department and PAS has been meeting regularly to prepare a National Plan to increase the provision of services through Irish and survey the number of Irish speakers employed by the public service, and is considering approaches to the future recruitment of Irish speakers.