Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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100. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht his views on the recently published 2024 Annual Report of An Coimisinéir Teanga. [37916/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome An Coimisinéir’s Annual Report and commend the excellent work carried out by his office in monitoring compliance with the Official Language Acts. The report demonstrates the significant progress that has been made to date, particularly in terms of advertising and the visibility of the Irish language in the media, and the number of public bodies that seek advice from that office.

While An Coimisinéir Teanga has identified some gaps in the provision of Irish language public services in the report, I am encouraged that much of the work currently being developed under the Act will look to directly address most of these, namely:

• utilising workforce planning as a core tool to identify specific roles that would require bilingual employees – with customer services being priorities in this regard, particularly in the Gaeltacht.
• proactively offering Irish language training courses to current staff and new recruits and removing potential barriers to training.
• proactively recruiting people with Irish and gathering relevant information through the recruitment process.