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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 6 May 1947

Vol. 105 No. 16

Written Answers. - Irish Language.

asked the Taoiseach if he will state whether he has caused any investigation to be made, in respect of any part of the country, during the last ten years, into the position and use of the Irish language as a vernacular; and if so, if he will take steps to make the result of these investigations available to members of the Oireachtas.

No general investigation of the kind to which the Deputy apparently refers has been made. In connection, however, with the administration of some of the Government's schemes for the preservation of the language in the Irish-speaking districts or as part of the Government's general policy to extend the use of the Irish language a certain amount of information has been obtained.

For example, annual inspections are carried out by the Department of Education in connection with the making, since the 1st July, 1931, of special grants to eligible teachers in districts where Irish is generally spoken as the language of the homes and where a considerable proportion of the children coming to school for the first time know Irish only or know Irish better than English, and also in connection with the grant, since the 1st July, 1934, of the bonus of £5 (originally £2) to the parents of Irish-speaking school-children in the Gaeltacht and the Breac-Gaeltacht in cases in which the Department is satisfied that Irish is the language of the child's home and that the child in consequence speaks Irish naturally and fluently; the number of school children in receipt of the bonus mentioned above is published in the annual reports of the Department of Education.

It is hoped that when the 1946 Census statistics relating to the Irish language are available, a general picture can be obtained of the position of the language in the country as a whole and, in particular, in the Gaeltacht and the Breac-Gaeltacht areas.

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