The Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht has acknowledged that Irish may never become an everyday language for most of the population. Past official policies were partly to blame.
Mr Eamon O Cuiv also told a European Union gathering that his Department is working on an Official Languages Equality Bill, aimed at incorporating the language more fully into Irish society.
"Irish may never become the vernacular language of the majority of the population," Mr Eamon O Cuiv told the European Commission's Annual Colloquy on Regional and Minority Languages in Brussels yesterday.
He conceded that "official policies in the past may have been inappropriate in some respects" in regard to bringing about a bilingual society. However, he O Cuiv told the commission that Irish was constitutionally the first official language of the State and should be accorded status at least equal to that of English.
The proposed Official Languages Equality Bill would address some problems in incorporating the Irish language more fully into society and providing better services for Irish-speakers.
Approximately 100,000 people use Irish as a vernacular language on a daily basis, according to the latest census figures, O Cuiv said that while many young people have the ability to speak it. With the growth of Irish-language media and publications, these figures indicate "a solid basis on which to expand the use of the language in the years to come".
But Mr O Cuiv seemed resigned to the fact that the road to bilingualism slopes steeply uphill. "The actual position of the two official languages, Irish and English, is very unequal," the Minister O Cuiv said. "The level of service to Irish-speakers and the general level of planning for the provision of such services are not satisfactory despite initiatives taken both in the Civil Service and in the wider public service."
O Cuiv said he has not yet sought formal approval of the Government for the proposals involved in his legislation, but he outlined to the commission some of the guiding principles he hoped to put into effect. The proposed language Bill would include provisions mandating that all official agencies provide services in Irish and English. "The citizen will choose which of the official languages he or she wishes to use for the purposes of dealing with the State, rather than having that choice made on his or her behalf as is by and large the case at present," Mr O Cuiv emphasised.
The Bill would ideally extend to both the public and private sectors, he said, and Bord na Gaeilge would have powers of enforcement to ensure that the guidelines of bilingualism were followed.
Mr O Cuiv suggested that Canada, with its two official languages, could provide a role model for Ireland in terms of language policies. Canada has an official languages commissioner and an office devoted to overseeing the implementation and enforcement of language legislation, a situation that might be applicable to Ireland.