As has been indicated, the opinion is that this is the most important Estimate we could discuss, and the Taoiseach, in a special contribution on the Education Estimate last year, expressed that very definitely as his opinion. I think it is a very important Estimate, too. The more we look around us and see what is happening in the world and what may be our future, the greater will be the importance of the Department of Education, its outlook and policy, the type of machinery it uses and the way it uses it, and the way it links together every section of the people concerned with education. There are many things at the present time which make people stop and look around them and estimate what they are doing, but it it seems to me that the Department of Education has come to a stop, without being driven in any kind of way to look around and see what it is doing. It seems, as it were, to have lost all its administrative sense, lost all its sense of touch with the problems that are there and particularly with the problems that face people in afterlife. On various matters it has shown itself acting as a bureaucracy. As I said last year, it seems to me that the Department of Education has gone underground. It reminds me of a body gone into the catacombs, but without any vision and without any creed. I do not think we can afford to feel that the Department of Education has done that.
This country has gone through a very peculiar time in the last 20 years. It has been torn by matters arising out of politics that have confused nearly the whole national outlook and almost our whole spiritual outlook. There are many things that, in ordinary circumstances, we would be turning our backs on, in order to face a definite future; but the temper of the world at the present time is such that, if we never had anything in our past on which we should like to turn our backs now in order to start with fresh minds and bigger spirit, what is happening at the present would force us to consider what may happen in the future.
I do not want to exaggerate any statement of the Taoiseach last year, or to suggest that it embodies his whole mind on this matter. Speaking on the 27th May, 1941, in this House, however, the Taoiseach said:—
"I believe fundamentally in this— and I think I can stand up in argument on the matter with anybody —that we can teach in our primary schools the elements of arithmetic, in whichever language we teach it, and even through Irish, so as to instruct children to add, subtract, multiply and divide, to do simple fractions and decimals, and that is all I want. We can do that in the school years. We can teach them to write a simple letter in English and to do the same in Irish; we can teach them to read a simple book in English and to do the same in Irish; and we can teach them to carry on a simple conversation and express ideas in English and to do the same in Irish. I believe that can be done within the time, but it is sufficiently big a programme not to allow of what I have several times described as frills. There is no time for anything but absolutely fundamental and essential things, and, if we confine ourselves to them, we can get our work done, and we can have our reasonable tests at the end to see that it has been done."
I do not want to suggest that that is the clarion cry or the scroll in gold letters that the Taoiseach should put over the front door of the Department of Education; but, coming from the political Head of the Government, either in the times of last year or in the times of this year, it is not sufficient for us in the realm of our education.
Again, I cannot help looking to Great Britain. One of the things about which there is most discussion there is the importance of education. Every aspect of education is being discussed: the question of enfolding it in a religious spirit and bringing back religion to the schools where religion may have been displaced; making school centres where idealism, hope and energy as well as technical efficiency are created so that people coming from the schools will have been taught to expect opportunity and to make the best of their opportunity. Every section of the various classes of people in Great Britain are talking about the present day and planning for to-morrow. Education is very prominently before them. When the Christian Churches came together there last year they added five points that they would regard as a practical epitomising of the points that Our Holy Father the Pope had announced as being the things that, from his point of view, should be kept most in mind in ordering the world in future. One of the points mentioned in the statement of the British Churches at that particular time was that every child, regardless of race or class, should have equal opportunities of education suitable for the development of his peculiar capacities. Mr. Bevin made this statement—I think I have already called attention to it—speaking on the 3rd November last:—
"If we had had the vision to make the school-leaving age 16 20 years ago and had added technical training to the last three years of vocational and cultural education, we would not have had a skilled labour problem in this war."
He had made up his mind to see that in future children should have a fair chance. In The Times of the 28th May it is reported that the education advisory committee of the Liberal Party had issued a report headed: “Education For All.” The following reference was made to it, although the report had not yet passed the annual assembly of the Liberal Party to which it was proposed to present it:—
"The report affirms that the children of all must have equal access to good education under satisfactory conditions of staffing, equipment, and building... The school-leaving age should be raised to 16, without exemption or exception. There should be three main stages in education: primary, secondary, and further, and a common form of education for primary stage. In the secondary stage there must be considerable variety of schools. The public schools should be preserved, but become an integral part of the national system, with roots in the localities in which they are situated. Private schools should be licensed. Family allowances, already approved by the Party, are essential. From 16 to 18 there should be a complete system of continued education. Evening institutes and social centres should be linked up with further education. A supreme effort must be made to fill up the gaps in engineering, scientific and art education and university education made more equally and widely available."
They are just points in what is a regular movement throughout all political parties, throughout all classes. There is an acceptance of the fact that education must be the basis of their future prosperity and their future happiness in whatever kind of world they have to face. The same applies to us. Various problems fell on the world after the last war. The nature of them was not recognised until maybe ten years or more afterwards. It is now recognised by those nations that have been engulfed in this war that if they had realised the changed economic conditions, the expansion in development and distribution of the world's resources, which created new types of unemployment, and if a little more thought and energy had been directed to a study of the situation and how to act in accordance with the facts, that with a fraction of the effort this war involves, with a fraction of the sacrifice, a fraction of the wastage of resources, people could have been provided with much of their material wants and the amenities that go to make life happier, and that better education would have enabled people to get more out of themselves spiritually and mentally.
We are in the very type of circumstances in which other countries are, and in which other countries were, after the last war. We have an opportunity of examining the situation with all the energy and all the thought that we can bring to bear on it. Through the help of Providence we have, up to the present, an opportunity of examining these things without being invaded by the rough hand of war in the way that other countries have been invaded. It is disheartening that so little energy and so little thought are, apparently, being given to the situation here through the Department of Education.
Speaking on the Estimate last year, I drew attention to the position that Deputy Mullen has referred to, that is, the position in the City of Dublin, not so much because young fellows were staying away from school when, according to the law, they ought to have been at school, but because young fellows were leaving school at 14 years of age who had no place in the world to turn to to find employment or occupation of any kind. Where there was absence from school that was irregular and contrary to the law, it was to some extent because of the fact that classes were too crowded and very often there was no attraction to bring the boys there and there was no power in the teachers to hold them there. At a time when that was the case, we were shutting down our training colleges or half closing them, ceasing to utilise our preparatory colleges. It was a time when we should be spending money, because it was one of the ways in which we could be spending money, in training our young people who are suitable for training, utilising our preparatory colleges and training colleges to the very full so that we might be strengthening our educational machine here.
I drew attention at that time to the position and I summarised it in this way. A short time before I had put down some questions with regard to 12 schools that I took at random on the north side of the city and I pointed out that in the case of boys 30.5 per cent. of the classes had more than 50 boys on the roll, that in the case of girls 66 per cent. had more than 50 on the roll, while in the case of infants 58.5 had more than 50 on the roll. Out of 150 classes in these 12 schools, 55 per cent., or a total of 82 classes, had 50 pupils on the roll. I raised the question that the classes were too large. I could get no encouragement from the Minister that anything would be done to reduce these classes. I was told that I was giving the figures on the roll and not the average. I said that I was giving the figures on the rolls because I wanted to make a comparison with what had been done in Great Britain in the ten years before and I was relating the figures on the roll to those on the roll in Great Britain because the only figures I had for Great Britain were the figures on the roll. I pointed out that in 1928 they came to a decision in Great Britain that they should reduce their classes. I showed that, in 1928, in the schools in the various urban districts in Great Britain there were 22,173 classes, 7.9 per cent. of which had more than 50 children on the roll, and that by 1938 they had reduced that percentage to 1.6. Similarly, in the case of the county boroughs, where the number of classes in the year 1928-29 was 46,408, 10.9 per cent. of these classes had 50 or more children on the roll and that percentage was reduced to 2.4 by 1937-38. In the City of London, where they had 15,129 classes in 1928-29, in 10.6 per cent. there were more than 50 on the roll and that percentage was reduced to 0.4 by 1937-38.
On the other day, the 20th of May, I asked for similar information in respect of the same schools for which I asked information last year. I have not yet got the information and, not getting the information, I took at random this morning one of the schools about which I had got information previously. I went up to the school in Lower Rutland Street. It is not a school in my constituency, but it is not very far removed from it. I selected it as a school that was compact, a school where there were boys' and girls' classes. I wanted to see how we stood there from the point of view of the reduction of classes. Last year in the girls' school in junior infants, Class A, there were 60 children on the roll and 50 in attendance. To-day there are 85 on the roll and 69 in attendance. In junior infants, Class B, there were last year 70 on the roll and 57 in attendance. To-day there are 73 on the roll. A similar position is disclosed in the other classes. Senior infants, Class A, had a roll of 62 last year and 62 this year. Senior infants B had a roll of 60 last year and of 63 this year. Class 1A had a roll last year of 48, of whom 45 were in attendance; this year it has a roll of 63, of whom 58 were in attendance. Class 1B last year had a roll of 47, of whom 41 were in attendance. This year it has a roll of 63, of whom 52 were in attendance. In Class 2 there were 43 on the roll last year, of whom 42 were in attendance; this year there are 42 on the roll and 33 in attendance. In the case of the boys, in the junior infants, Class A, there were last year 68 on the roll and 56 in attendance; to-day there are 92 on the roll and 82 in attendance. In junior infants B, there were 64 on the roll last year and 53 in attendance; to-day there were 88 on the roll and 72 in attendance. In the whole of the infant boys school, last year there were on the roll 429 boys for whom there were eight teachers, that is, an average of 54 on the roll. This year there are 486 on the roll with eight teachers, that is, an average of 61 on the roll, while the average in attendance was 54.
Is it not an astonishing thing that we can sit here and stand over anything like that knowing the traditional respect of the Irish people for education, realising how short a time the primary programme runs, with the age limit for our primary schools at 14, knowing that so much depends on the efforts we make to provide these children with an adequate education within these years and knowing that so much in regard to character training and discipline depends upon that education? What kind of an attempt do these figures reveal at inculcating in our children a respect for national institutions, at teaching them to accept and to respect them? What can we expect when we herd our young people into classes such as these—Infants A, 85 girls; infants A, 92 boys. I appeal to the Minister to realise that we must try to remedy that situation. When the Minister provides information in regard to the 12 schools for which I have asked information covering last year we can see to what extent the characteristics to which I have referred still prevail. As I have said, I gave last year the percentage figures for the number of classes in which there were 50 pupils and upwards on the roll. In some cases 30.5 per cent. had more than 50 on the roll, in others 66 per cent., and in others 58.5 per cent. At the same time the British authorities pursuing through their various schools a system of reducing the numbers in classes to a figure under 50 had reduced over ten years the percentage in which there were still more than 50 pupils to 1.6 in the boroughs and urban districts, to 2.4 in the county boroughs, to 0.4 in the City of London and in the whole country to 1.4.
There is something there that cannot wait, and that must be dealt with. It can be faced by making proper use of our training colleges, by the proper utilisation of our preparatory colleges, by taking some of our young people who to-day are wondering whether they can get a permit to go to England, and getting those suitably and properly qualified in character into our teaching corps. We may be excused for not building houses, excused for not developing industries, and for not having great cereal production, because we cannot get manures, but we cannot be excused if we neglect our educational development. I did hope when, by chance, I selected a school to go into this morning, to find one school in which not to be disappointed, particularly as I was going to a school that would naturally lose some of its children because of clearances in the neighbourhood. It is true that there was other building going on in that neighbourhood, but I did hope that there were some schools in which there was improvement, but anyone would be shocked that the change for the worse was so bad. I raised that matter last year but I got no sympathy from the Minister. I ask the Minister if he realises what that means in a city where we give nothing to young people growing up except education. Nothing is really the foundation of education but discipline and training. I want to say that in schools of that kind young people can get neither discipline nor training. It must be a shocking disappointment and a crushing burden. I do not know how men and women who have to go as teachers can bear such conditions. It is part of the complete detachment from the realities of things that I find about the Department of Education at present. Last year I complained about the form which the report takes. If there is any Department with a tradition for giving an annual report, it is the Department of Education. There are a few other Departments which have a sound tradition of giving reports in detail on various aspects of their work.
Some years ago the Department of Education got from every one of its divisional inspectors detailed reports, and then pieced them together, giving a general picture. On reading through it one was challenged here and there and the question arose as to how to follow particular lines of thought and inquiry. Now, the report has gone completely, and we get a series of statistics over a year or two. I think very few are going to look at a volume of statistics. The Minister's annual review on his Estimate, if we take the general lines on which it went this year and last year, is not going to fill in the picture on questions to which we could direct our minds, either in the way of appreciation or useful questions.
The Minister speaks again of the importance of the Irish language. Is there anything in the Minister's statement that gave us anything at all that could be called a picture, as to whether the language was either being strengthened or being weakened? I put a question to the Minister the other day asking him, in respect of the position in June, 1941, how many schools in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and the Breac-Ghaeltacht were doing all the work through the medium of Irish. He told me that in June, 1941, 174 schools in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht were doing all work through Irish; in the Gaeltacht, 75 schools; in the Breac-Ghaeltacht, 119 schools, and in the Galltacht, 255 schools. In June, 1939, there were 172 in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht doing all work through the medium of Irish, so that there was an increase of two. In the Gaeltacht in June, 1939, there were 102 doing all work in Irish, but by June, 1941, the number had fallen to 75, or a fall of 25 per cent. I do not know how the Minister differentiates between the Gaeltacht and the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. The number of schools doing the work in Irish in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht had fallen from 102 to 75. In the Breac-Ghaeltacht the number fell from 125 to 119, a fall of six. In the Galltacht the number fell from 305 in 1939 to 280 in 1940 and to 255 in 1941, so that between June, 1939, and June, 1941, 50 schools in the Galltacht doing work through the medium of Irish had ceased to be reckonable in that particular class.
There are also schools that do their work partly through Irish and, if we look at the report of the Department of Education for 1938-39, we find that there were 2,411 of these in the year ended 30th June, 1939. If we refer to the report for 1939-40 the number was 2,205 or a decrease of 206. Now, 206 schools doing work partly through the medium of Irish have gone completely out of that class in two years. When you have a fall of 81 schools in two years in the class doing all work through the medium of Irish and a fall of 206 in two years in schools doing part of their work through the medium of Irish, a question arises in our minds as to what on earth is happening, and, both from the educational and national point of view, we ought to have some review of the situation, and that review should be such that it would be traceable to different localities and to different causes, because if the work being done for Irish is meant to have an educational effect, we ought to know something about why it is failing in this way and why it is being dropped. Is it being dropped for better educational advantages? If we consider the effect of maintaining the Irish language, of developing and using it and making it the medium of expression through which the nation can express itself, it is all the more serious that facts like these should show themselves and it is all the more important that we should get some explanation of them, but, as it is, these are all buried in statistics and we do not get even the meagre story which the summary of the inspectors used to give.
I say that the Department has gone underground. I had occasion in previous years to say that it had changed the whole position of the mathematics programme without any public consultation. The other day it introduced a scheme of superannuation for secondary school teachers without consulting the secondary school teachers' body about it and left out of the scheme things which these teachers, as a body, would have been prepared to pay for and wanted, that is, an arrangement by which they would get a gratuity on death, or on leaving the service, in the same way as the civil servant gets it. That superannuation scheme was put into operation without any consultation with them. I pointed out, at great length, the extraordinary action of the Department in adding 10 per cent. to the Greek marks after they had been published generally following the last intermediate examinations. All administrative touch seems to be gone. There seems to be no directing policy and no directing spirit, and, as for giving us what the people of Great Britain are getting to make us enthusiastic about education, to get us into a stride which will overcome our weaknesses, our laziness and perhaps our lack of hope in what education can do, the Department is doing nothing. It is doing nothing to guide or lead us in a vigorous and energetic way along the road we must travel, a road we must travel quickly and with a high heart and high hope, if we are to do the enormous amount of work that requires to be done.
The latest sidelight on how devoid of touch and energy the Department is is shown by its attitude to the Irish National Teachers' Organisation in connection with their report. The teachers, who are the people upon whom we are depending for the carrying on of our primary education, took the initiative themselves and set on foot an inquiry into a very important matter — teaching through Irish in English-speaking districts. They spent a very considerable amount of time at it and their report was ready some time last year. They arranged to have it printed in July last, and, having had it printed, they presented it to the Minister, without making in any way public the fact that they had been examining the question or had come to any conclusions with regard to it. They realised it was an important matter and a matter on which there should, so far as possible, be no difference between the teaching body, the Department and the people as a whole. They passed that report to the Minister somewhere about the middle of 1941. The official programme of the 74th Annual Congress of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, which was to be presented to their meeting in University College, Dublin, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 7th, 8th and 9th April, 1942, states:—
"The signatories to the report had a long conference with the chief inspector and four other members of the inspection staff, at which the report was considered and discussed. The teachers' representatives were informed that the purpose of the conference was to have various matters included in the report clarified and, that having been done, the inspectors' views would be placed before the Minister. At their next following meeting, held on 7th February, the executive decided to inquire from the Minister as to whether or not they might expect to be favoured with a statement of his observations on the report, pointing out at the same time that publication of the report had been held over in order to afford him an opportunity to consider it beforehand, but that the question of its issue could not be much longer postponed. Up to the date of the preparation of this report, the Minister had not replied to the communication on the subject which had been addressed to him on 9th February. At the meeting held on March 21st, it was decided that, subject to the approval of Congress, the report would be issued for publication following the first meeting of the new executive."
All that the teachers have had from the Minister is a letter dated 4th April, 1942, which reads:—
"In reply to your letter of the 9th February last, relative to the report of the committee of inquiry into the question of teaching through the medium of Irish in English-speaking districts, I am directed to state that, as a result of the conference held recently, the representatives of your organisation are fully aware of the views of his Department, and the Minister does not find it necessary to add anything by way of formal observations.
The Minister desires me to express to you his appreciation of your courtesy in holding over publication of the report pending its consideration by him and his Department. The question whether the report should be published or not is, in the Minister's view, a matter which must be left entirely to the discretion of your organisation.
Mise, le meas,
L. Ua Broin."
If there is anything which ought, in the first place, to be taken out of politics and, in the second place, ought to be put in such a position that our people as a whole can have, if not complete confidence in the situation, sufficient confidence to say: "Well, the best people, the people most qualified to do it, have decided this. We know of no other qualified people to bring in on it, and we have to leave it in the hands of the people best qualified," it is this question of the Irish language. Now, I do not want to suggest that the Irish language is a matter of Party politics at the present time at all. I think it is quite true that every Party in this House stands for the complete revival of the Irish language. Nevertheless, it is a matter that is affected very much by politics. People are afraid to discuss certain aspects of the teaching of Irish, lest it react on them politically. I think that we have to take Irish completely away from that, and the only way that we can safeguard Irish against inhibitions that are brought about by political feelings is to decide, once and for all, for ourselves, who are the technicians in this matter of the Irish language, and to get the technicians to review the facts and to give us their opinions. If either the Department or this House, reviewing the situation as other than technicians, but reviewing the technicians' opinions of the facts as presented by them, wish to modify the approach to the Irish language position in the schools or elsewhere, then we are at perfect liberty to do it, knowing, while we are doing it, that we have first had proper technical advice and a proper statement of the facts.
When we look around, in order to see who are the people on whose technical efforts we are depending to restore the language, on whose technical advice we are depending to see whether the language is being restored or not, one group of people comes very prominently to our minds, and these are the national school teachers. There is nobody, who has been in touch with the work that has been done for Irish in the last 20 years and longer, but must stand amazed at the amount of heroic work and at the amount of intelligent and first-class educational work that has been put into the teaching and the fostering of Irish by the national school teachers. We can say the same with regard to the secondary school teachers and other teachers, but I am discussing the national school teachers at the present time. They have borne the hard part of the job. In view of the extent to which their organisation went to select the particular type of teachers best qualified, in their opinion, because of the type of work they had been carrying on, if they do go to these people and get opinions from them as regards facts and as regards opinions, then they are going to the people who have done the hardest part of the job, and their opinions ought to be respected, as being sincerely given, and ought to be reviewed and commented on, and if weaknesses are detected here and there on the part of people who have been bearing the heavy end of the work, then, if necessary, they should be helped over some of the difficulties that they may be meeting at the present moment. I think it is a shocking thing that they should be left in the position in which they are left at the moment by the Minister for Education, by the way in which this report has been accepted and treated.
We cannot save the Irish language without the work of the national school teachers. We cannot get the national school teachers to do their work unless there is complete trust, complete harmony, and complete understanding between themselves and the Department. The very fact that the National School Teachers' Organisation has made a report which, it is suggested, is going contrary to the policy of the Department of Education, is going to have a shocking effect on the public mind, if that suggestion is to be left there.
The report is written in such a way that you could take very many impressions from it, and I want to suggest that there is one thing urgently necessary, and that is, that we should get an analysis by the Minister for Education of what the conclusions of that report are, an analysis that we can read on a sheet or two of paper. Then we would get a reflection of the mind of the Minister on it, or the worked-out opinions of the inspectorate on it, but I do not think that that report can lie there without being epitomised by the Department itself, and without putting us here and our people into the position of having an epitome alongside it of the opinions of the inspectorate on the report, because if our teachers are one essential part of our technical personnel dealing with this matter, our inspectors are another. They may be more important in some respects; they are less important in others. They are less important by reason of the fact that they have not the job of doing the detailed, slaving work. They may be more important by reason of the fact that they can stand outside that work without being weighed down by the drudgery or the responsibility of handling it, and can give us a more detached opinion, say, than the person who is stuck into the work in a responsible way may be able to give. So that we have our inspectors, then, as another part of our technical personnel, but at the present moment we have a report from the principal people concerned with the work and who have been concerned with the work for over 20 years. Everyone of the people who signed that report is a person of high standing as a national school teacher, a person who has been connected with what we may call general, national work, outside his educational work, for many years. I think that the average age of the five would be something like 44, and two of them have been presidents of the Irish National School Teachers' Organisation. Every one of them has been rated highly efficient during the whole of a comparatively long official career, and they have all been engaged in teaching through the medium of Irish. You have, therefore, ripe experience and responsibility; you have certified, efficient, educational service, and you have a certain amount of general public experience and services given to what we may call the general, national cause.
Now, as I say, I do not think that that report can be left in the way in which the Minister has left it, and I bring forward this matter for the purpose of urging the Minister to give us a summary, as seen by him, of the conclusions that this report has come to, because that report will be misrepresented: you will get 47 different accounts of what it suggests, and our people, generally, ought not to be left in that position. If the report is going to be left in that position, it will increase the very considerable amount of public dissatisfaction that exists already.
Generally, on the question of education, I have repeatedly asked that subjects such as geography, history and mathematics should be taken, and that, three or four experienced national school teachers should be released from their work, one group being appointed to examine what the position of geography is in the national schools so that we might get a report on that and other groups to do the same in regard to history and mathematics. If that were done it would give an opportunity of reviewing the whole of our educational position and programme. That work would provide openings of employment for some of our unemployed teachers. The main object I have in mind, in suggesting that, is to get a review that would be directly objective of the position with regard to particular subjects. From a review of that kind you might be up against certain aspects of teaching through the medium of Irish, but it would be only as a by-product. I have not any sympathy with the over simplification of the work that should be done in the primary schools. In the beginning I quoted what the Taoiseach had said on that, but I do not hold him to it. My opinion is that if we bow ourselves down to a complete and utter simplification of the primary school programme—to the level that is suggested —then we are going to take all hope out of our primary school life.
For a couple of years I have represented to the Minister that one of the things that is damaging the vivid life of the Irish language in the secondary schools is the fact that the alleged rule that the language of recreation and the language of outside school hours should be Irish, is not being adhered to. I have urged that repeatedly. The Minister, in a most unconvincing way, has said that what I urged is not true. I want to repeat that what I have stated is true. The one A school in the City of Dublin where that has been a rigid tradition up to the present—that Irish should be the language every moment of the day, the outside class language— is suffering to-day from a breakdown in that rule. It is suffering in a way that is causing very great concern to those in charge of the school. What had been a most rigid tradition for so many years in that school is now breaking down. I do not know why. If it is breaking down, I suggest that it is because that school has caught the disease from the other A secondary schools in the city where, for many years, the rule has not been observed, in spite of the Minister's protestations.
I have urged before on the Minister that one of the things that is doing a very considerable amount of damage is that the work that has been going on for so many years on the Epistles and Gospels is not being speeded up so that we might have an Irish Missal. I think that about four years before the former Government went out of office a sum of £1,000 was voted every year for the completion of Canon O'Leary's work. Ten years have since passed. In my view, one of the biggest blows that the language has received, in the case of secondary school children, is that at their age they get an English Missal into their hands. If, instead, they had an Irish Missal they would have in their hands that whole treasury of literature and spiritual devotion which every secondary school child clings to. If their introduction to that spiritual treasury is through the English language, then their contact with it is going to be through English. The fact that the production of an Irish Missal has not been speeded up has been a very great blow to the work that is being done in the secondary schools. It is also one of the things which has militated against the use of the language outside school hours.
The Minister indicated that one of the great things that is wrong with the primary schools is the fact that the teachers do not use oral Irish sufficiently, but he did not indicate what he is doing to remedy that. The main charge that I make against the Department is that it has lost completely its administrative touch and is not helping those who are bearing the burden of the day. One of the tests that I put to the Minister is to show the way in which he is going to approach the situation caused by the publication of the report from the Irish National Teachers' Organisation. It is essential that the language be spared the blow that would be given by a wrong handling of that situation by the Minister. I do not believe there is any real disagreement between the Department and the teachers. I feel, however, that, in the report, there are elements which show that the people who have been doing the heavy part of that work up to the present are finding it a bit too heavy, and that it is time somebody would lift up their hands and encourage them. It is time they would be helped and that whatever has to be done will be done after it has been fully reviewed by the technical people whom our people look to. It is essential to take the Irish language away from being influenced in any way by politics. It is essential, too, that people of all classes should know the importance of this work and see that it is being done on properly devised lines.
