Madam, - As a lawyer who could speak Irish fluently when I completed my primary schooling, and who continues to love the language, I share the views of Henry Murdoch (Opinion & Analysis, July 31st) that it is time to end the compulsory Irish test for lawyers.
The origin of the testing of prospective solicitors is set out in section 4 of the Legal Practitioners (Qualification) Act 1929. Few Irish lawyers have a "competent knowledge of the Irish language" as required by the legislation. The Irish examinations for both branches of the legal profession are farcical. It is hypocritical in the extreme for the State to insist that the Law Society and the King's Inns must continue to insist on such dubious knowledge of our wonderful language.
The compulsory Irish examinations for lawyers as presently constituted should be removed. Some lawyers should be trained properly and fully in the use of Irish so that a genuine pool of practitioners would be available to people who wish to give instructions, take advice and have their legal work, whether in the courts or elsewhere, conducted in Irish .
But then the State does not itself practise what it dictates, in that for some years past no Irish version of some legislation has been produced. Official hypocr- isy? -Yours, etc,
PATRICK O'CONNOR, Swinford, Co Mayo.