Willie O'Dea
Question:274 Deputy Willie O’Dea asked the Minister for Education and Skills if his attention has been drawn to the many scientific publications which show that learning another language significantly helps improve literacy in one’s own mother tongue; if his further attention has been drawn to the fact that one and sometimes even two foreign languages are taught at primary school level in most other countries which performed better than Ireland in recent surveys on literacy proficiencies; and, if so, whether in view of this he will reconsider his decision to abolish the modern languages in primary school initiative and thus avoid making Ireland fall behind all the other EU member states in terms of foreign language competence with all the negative economic implications that this would have; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17742/12]
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