As the Deputy will be aware, the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021 was enacted on 22 December last. It underpins a key Programme for Government commitment and it is notable that this coincides with Irish having become a full working language of the EU Institutions since January.
The achievement of an ambitious 20% recruitment target of proficient Irish speakers by 2030 requires a cross-Government approach. The Act provides that within 6 months of the date of enactment, the Minister shall establish an Irish Languages Services Advisory Committee. Accordingly, Minister Martin and I established this Committee in June of this year. The committee is chaired by the Director of Irish at my Department and has representatives from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Public Appointments Service ("PAS") as provided for under section 18B. (3)(a), (b) and (c) of the Act.
The functions of this Committee are set out in the Act and include the preparation of a National Plan, within two years of its establishment, to increase the provision of services through the medium of Irish as well periodic surveying of the number of Irish speakers employed by the public service.
To that end, after discussing the various possibilities regarding the approach to the National Plan and the research that could be commissioned for it, the Committee decided at its first meeting on 25 July 2022, that it would issue a Request for Tenders through the open procurement method before the end of August 2022. The Request for Tenders was published by my Department on the e-tendering platform and in the Official Journal of the European Union supplement (OJ/S) at the end of last month. The deadline for submitting tenders is 1pm on the 30 September 2022.
It is envisaged that this will be a one-year contract to ensure that the Committee complies with the ambitious deadline set for the preparation of the overall Plan under the Act. Research priorities will include:
- Identifying the current gaps in the provision of public services through the medium of Irish and making recommendations on how to address these;
- Identifying the public services provided in Gaeltacht Language Planning Areas (LPA) and making recommendations as to how to ensure that Irish is the working language of those offices located in each LPA and as to how services for Gaeltacht communities are to be provided through the medium of Irish;
- Identifying the current level of competence in Irish in the public sector; and
- Making recommendations regarding the recruitment of people with Irish.
It is expected that the measures referred to above, in addition to other new initiatives aimed at promoting Irish speaking roles in the public service, will, over the years leading up to 2030 and beyond, result in increased numbers of applicants for these roles.
Some of the actions that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and PAS are already taking to increase the number of fluent Irish speakers in the civil service include
- Dedicated recruitment and promotion competitions targeted at Irish language speakers: Since the summer of 2021, PAS has held general civil service competitions for individuals with fluency in Irish at Clerical Officer, Executive Officer, Higher Executive Officer and Principal Officer level. The out-turn of these competitions reflects that the number of fluent Irish speakers applying to join the civil service, or otherwise declaring a fluency in Irish, remains low.
I am advised by PAS that since the enactment of the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021, a total of 44 candidates have been assigned from panels established by recruitment competitions - ranging from Clerical Officer to Principal Officer level - where fluency in Irish was required for the post in question and for which proficiency in Irish was tested as part of the PAS assessment process.
Additionally, up until the end of June 2022, PAS has assigned 101 candidates from competitions to posts where Irish was not identified by the hiring employer as a prerequisite for the post in question and where the candidate declared as part of their application that they had fluency in Irish. Their proficiency in Irish was not, however, tested as part of the PAS assessment process.
It is possible that some Departments or Government Officers may also have recruited fluent speakers directly under their local recruitment licence instead of PAS.
- Irish language training in the civil service: Along with the recruitment of staff with sufficient Irish language skills, the provision of Irish language training for the civil service is of particular importance, in order to enhance the linguistic abilities of current civil servants. OneLearning, the Learning and Development Centre for the civil service, was set up in 2017 and is responsible for delivering common training to all Civil Service Bodies (CSBs).
Irish language training courses continue to be made available to all existing civil servants via OneLearning - the Learning and Development Centre for the Civil Service based in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Since 2018, 1,454 civil servants have enrolled on an Irish language training course through OneLearning. 470 enrolments of these enrolments were in 2021 and 179 to date in 2022.
OneLearning signed a new contract for the provision of Irish language training in 2021 and is currently rolling out an expanded range of Irish Language training courses that will include the introduction of a Beginner’s Irish course. The first term of these courses is commencing this month. The Irish Language courses will be certified by Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge (TEG), which is administered by the Centre for Irish Language at Maynooth University. It is a comprehensive, graded system that allows learners to undertake examinations at five different levels of proficiency. The various levels in TEG are broadly based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching and Assessment (Council of Europe, 2001).
It is my expectation that these new measures and others introduced in the years ahead will increase the level and number of Irish medium services available to the public.
