Madam, – The Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs announces a scheme to “treble” the number of Irish speakers. Does he wish them to speak in a higher pitch? Or perhaps he wishes to triple the numbers?
Rather than spending money on what will no doubt be mere advertising campaigns and websites encouraging us to use the cúpla focal, perhaps the funding would be better allocated in retaining the services of some of the language support staff who have been lost to the primary education system, to the disadvantage of non-national children who struggle with that other official language of the state, English.
But in the run-up to an election perhaps the Fianna Fáil politician is seeking to win the Gaeilgeoir and wider native vote in Dublin North West with a cheap populist gesture, a constituency which has a non-national school population well above the average and where education provision has been stretched to breaking point through lack of investment by his Fianna Fáil Government during good times and now bad. – Yours, etc,