A great many people look forward to that feature as a regular feature in the daily programme and for myself I must say that I think it is an excellent programme. No one can say that our sponsored programmes are overladen in respect of advertising the particular firm which is putting over the programme. Evidently that aspect of the matter is kept under strict control and the standard of the programmes broadcast is really very good — I could use the word "splendid" in respect of most of them. Then, again, the sport side of broadcasting is very well catered for.
I agree with Deputy Bartley that speakers who live on islands, and in backward places, especially, should have their news on Sunday nights presented to them in Irish. I recommend the Minister to have that done. I would point out again, with Deputy Bartley and Deputy Kennedy, that there is no difficulty there from the point of view of dialect except in so far as a very great number of people who listen-in to the Irish programmes are not native speakers. Those who learn Irish generally specialise in one dialect and when they hear a different dialet a certain amount of difficulty is presented. However, to those who know Irish well and to the native speaker, where the speaker from the station speaks slowly and distinctly and with good delivery, there is no difficulty in the world about it. If anyone broadcasting in Irish spoke just as Deputy Bartley spoke to-day, no one who had even a fair knowledge of Irish would have any difficulty from a dialectical point of view. However, I would impress on the Minister that he should consult his officials and remind them that very many of those who listen-in to the Irish programmes are learners and that it is therefore necessary to speak slowly and distinctly. The native Irish speakers are inclined to speak too rapidly for the ordinary listener.
With regard to the references which have been made to plays, I think we are a little oversensitive in this country. After all, if you take the English play-writers or the play-writers of any other country, you will find that very often they paint their own people as the blackest villains. Shakespeare himself has painted various English kings as absolute black villains. The English people do not object to that. They take the play for what it is worth and the lessons to be learned from it, and they are not at all as sensitive as we are here. I do think that The Playboy of the Western World was not a very good choice because it does offend a particular section of our people. It is all very well to hold a villain up — the more villainous he is made the greater the interest there is in the play. That is quite understandable but, in that particular play, the whole people connected with the incident, as it were, are pictured as condoning the crime. First of all, I think the crime is represented as much worse than it actually was, but then the attitude of the people is misrepresented in that particular play. I would advise that it should not be repeated when we know that it is offensive to so many of our people.
With regard to plays generally, I think we should put on the great standard plays more frequently. I know there is the difficulty of casting, and the difficulty of finding time to run through the play. There is not that difficulty in England. If an English station is giving an English play and people have not the time to listen to it right through, they can switch on to another station and get what they want. We cannot do that here. My suggestion to meet that is that there should be a commentator who would give a rapid résumé of the play, and that excerpts should be taken from the play and be done by the best artistes at our command. In that way, you would be giving a general idea of the play, an idea of the characters and of those participating, and you would be giving the telling passages from the play and, possibly, the climax. That would be very interesting for students throughout the country and to young people preparing for examinations, even for those in the lower classes in the secondary schools and right up to the universities. It would be very interesting for them to listen in. They could learn a great deal. I think that a play presented in that way would remain in their minds and would be useful and educational. I think, if that were done, you could get in a great play in possibly half an hour. In that way you would be removing the difficulties that I mentioned earlier. There is also this angle to it, that the older people who went through the full national school course, not to speak of those who did the secondary or higher courses, did learn by heart the great passages from the great plays. They would be immensely interested to hear these plays over the radio, especially in such a setting as I have suggested.
Now, I think Deputy Fitzpatrick was all wrong with regard to those foreign musicians, as he called them. We have excellent musicians in this country. I have attended concerts given by the pupils in the Dublin School of Music which is under the control of our vocational committee, and I know that we have excellent material there and that the training is excellent. At the same time, I think we can learn a great deal, and so I think it is quite permissible and quite good to have these outside people. Possibly, the benefit to the musicians themselves would be greater than the benefit to the people at large.
There was just one point in Deputy Burke's speech that I thought was very good, and that was that we should have an occasional talk on art in which our young painters should be mentioned and made known to the public generally. I have put boys through my hands who went on to the College of Art here. They had great natural ability and reached the point of exhibiting pictures but then they simply faded out. They went into some other walk of life and dropped art completely. Now, I think that if those people were advertised and made known, they would be capable of doing very good work. I am certain that, if they were in Britain and particularly if they were in France, young people of their ability would eventually become first-rate artists and might, possibly, become celebrated over the world. But here they simply fade away and are lost as artists to this country because of lack of support.
I do not think there is anything else I have to say. I think the present Minister is getting excellent service from those in his Department just as the previous Minister did. I congratulate him and, like Deputy Cowan, I say to him "carry on."