Vol. 104 No. 10
I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £4,600 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1947, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Houses of the Oireachtas, including a Grant-in Aid.
The total extra sum required under this Vote is £4,600—£3,000 in respect of the travelling expenses of Deputies and £1,600 for staff remuneration. The additional provision under sub-head B is required mainly to meet travelling expenses in respect of a greater number of sittings of the Dáil than was anticipated. The original provision of £8,000 was based on 24 sittings for the entire year; actually there have been 25 sittings already to the middle of February. In addition, Deputies have been using their own motor cars to a greater extent than previously; a further increase in expenditure under this head will probably result from the present cut in rail services. The additional provision under sub-head E is required to meet the recent increases in pay so far as the officers and staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas are concerned.
I desire to raise a question that I commented upon recently and that I think ought to be brought to some kind of conclusion. I indicated that, while we have as good a verbatim reporting staff as there is in any Assembly in the world, we are in the position, and it seems to be getting worse rather than better, that nobody can speak in the Irish language in this House and have his remarks recorded in the way in which it is contemplated that speeches in the House should be recorded. Anybody who intervenes in the debate in the Irish language finds himself compelled later on practically to write out what he has said. The matter was raised comparatively recently here and, from remarks made by the Taoiseach on the subject, we are supposed to be in the position that machinery cannot be provided, at any rate in the ordinary way, by which the Irish language can be used in a natural way in this House. The result is that the position of the Irish language in the House has been reduced to this, that Ministers come to the House on particular subjects—the Department of Education principally and cosmic physics in addition—with prepared statements which are read out here and these statements are enshrined in the records of the House, so that the language is degraded and demeaned to the position that it cannot be satisfactorily or naturally used in the House except in that particular kind of way. That cannot continue.
We are supposed to have a precious linguistic heritage in the language spoken continuously by our people as their native language, going back for thousands of years, and a language which, as well as being the vernacular of our people, was the literary instrument of our people back to the time, you might say, when writing began here. That vernacular was the literary language of our people back to, say, the earliest records of writing here. Both as a literary medium and as a medium of thought it has the value, the strength and the development of a language which has been so used. In scattered remnants of glens, mountains and islands in the west and south it still remains. One of the great flag-wagging ideas we keep in front of us is that we will maintain that language, spread it over the country as a whole, and that some day or another the Irish language, which has been preserved in the minds and on the lips of our people for so many centuries, will again be the language of business, the language of thought, the language of education and the language of general public use in this country. It is nothing but a fraud to be attempting to persuade ourselves of that and to be holding that up either as an ideal or as representing a piece of work which we are positively and constructively engaged upon.
We had it demonstrated here yesterday that it is possible for some of our people who are traditional Irish speakers to die unattended on islands served by a second-hand broken down telephone that is out of order for as many days in the year as it is in order, that there is an utter refusal on the part of the Government to amend in any way the landing facilities on the mainland from these islands.
There is no money in this Vote for landing facilities.
The position of the Irish language in the House is a matter of importance. It is a matter of importance because we have a national language. I only speak on this matter because it is of importance in the preservation of the language as a language carried with respect and love on the lips of our people so that it would have an honoured and practical position in this House. It has not such a position and it will not get such a position in this House so far as we know by any steps that are being taken to make provision for it. I suggest that it is vitally necessary that steps should be taken, because where the language does exist it is fading out of existence and passing into disrespect and disuse as nothing is being done either here, where in order to restore its position properly in the House it is necessary that something should be done, nor on the islands where people are left without any assistance——
There is no money in this Vote for Dunquin pier. It is a Supplementary Vote of £1,600 for staff remuneration. It is a very small Vote on which to raise the general position of the Irish language.
The general position of the Irish language has become more and more serious from every aspect during the last couple of years. It has become very serious here during the last couple of months, as we have been told by the head of the Government that it is not possible, so far as he is concerned, or so far as the Government are concerned, to make any arrangement by which people who wish to speak the national language in this House can speak it in a way in which it will be recorded and, being recorded, will demonstrate to the country as a whole that the national language is respected and used in this House.
In regard to the responsibility that lies upon us to know why we cannot get this machinery provided and why the national language cannot have its respected place in this House, I submit that we are bound to take cognisance of the fact that it is fading out of our glens, off our mountains and out of our islands, and that nothing is being done to see that it is maintained there, at any rate. It is there we are concerned with having it, but we cannot have it and we cannot get it used as long as it is ostracised from this House. Every time we listen to a Minister reading out a prepared document, any hope as to something being done for the language goes down, and we begin to despise ourselves and our Parliament. It is so futile and so impotent that it cannot do anything except to treat us to some odd dissertations read here which simply make us realise that the language is in a despised and futile position. For that reason, I raise the matter, and I ask those who are presenting this Estimate what is going to be done, whether those people in the House who want to make use of Irish in a natural and easy way as others make use of English will be allowed and permitted to do so.
A Chinn Comhairle, ní dóigh liom go bhfuil an ceart ar fad ag an Teachta. Tá cuid ar a laghad de na luath-scríobhneóirí gur feidir leo an Ghaeilge do scríobhadh nuair a labhrann na Teachtaí sa teanga sin.
Ní dúirt ná raibh.
Tá beirt nó triúr ach b'fheidir ná bíonn siad sa Tigh i gcónaí chun an obair sin a dhéanamh, agus is docha go bhfuil a lán de na luath-scríobhneóirí sa Tigh seo le fada an bhliain.
As a general principle we all would wish that all those who take down shorthand notes of the proceedings of the House would be able to do so in the Irish as well as the English language. There are a few who are able to take down the speeches in Irish and have them recorded in proper form, and I think nothing should be done that would be detrimental to those who are already in the service of the House.
I do not know what Deputy McCarthy is implying but if he is implying that I am criticising in any way the capacity of certain members of the staff to take down shorthand in Irish I am not doing anything of the sort. I am speaking of the position in which we Deputies find ourselves.
Well, I am sorry, a Chinn Comhairle. I did not hear all of the Deputy's speech but that is the view I have taken from the remarks I have heard.
In reply to what Deputy McCarthy says, I think that it should be possible to arrange a rostrum to which persons wishing to speak in Irish would go and have whatever they said recorded by some kind of machinery. I do not see how that would react prejudicially on the reporters who are able to take down shorthand in Irish if machinery of that particular type were installed and I think if nothing else can be done that something like it should be done at once.
Deputy McCarthy has more or less anticipated what I had intended to say. The difficulty, as everybody knows, is that the number of reporters who are capable of reporting speeches in Irish is limited——
Why?
——and there is no indication in advance when a Deputy may speak in Irish. One of these reporters who are capable of reporting may happen to be in the House on such an occasion. If a Deputy could give previous notice of his intention of speaking, some arrangement might be made to have some one of the reporters capable of reporting in Irish present on such an occasion. It is not possible to have one of the limited number of reporters who are capable of reporting in Irish present on all occasions. That is the cause of all the difficulty. Everybody, naturally enough, would wish that the Deputy's point of view could be met and that we would have a complete staff capable, each and every one of them, of reporting speeches in both languages but in existing circumstances that is not possible because they cannot be obtained.
Could the Parliamentary Secretary say if those official reporters employed during the last ten to 12 years are able to take speeches in both languages?
Some of them are, and some of them are not.
But surely some kind of provision could be made by which a special position or special positions would be made with suitable financial provision that would induce three or four persons in this country to specialise in reporting through the medium of the Irish language. This House never sits for longer than, say, seven or seven-and-a-half hours and surely two reporters competent to take transcriptions in Irish could divide a period of seven or eight hours between them and be constantly in attendance, as a special kind of service. Surely it is not outside the competency of our people to provide two, three or four persons with a competent knowledge of the Irish language and capable of doing in Irish what people are capable of doing in nearly every language in the world.
As I have stated the number of reporters capable of reporting in both languages is extremely limited. The Deputy, too, seems to forget that the other House of the Oireachtas—the Seanad—has also to be catered for and that reporters can only devote short intervals to taking notes—ten minutes at a time.
I think the Parliamentary Secretary will recall that a number of the members of the reporting staff have been called on to discharge very much more onerous work than simply taking down short-hand for 20 minutes or a quarter of an hour. If we have perfectly competent reporters, why not take even the limited number now capable of doing it and give them special duties and divide them between the Dáil and the Seanad and make special financial provision for them and leave them entirely free to be in attendance to watch whatever part of the proceedings in either House in which they may be on duty takes place through the Irish language and get additional reporters who may only be able to do the reporting work through English, who can be utilised in the ordinary way? Such reporters as we have who are competent to report in Irish ought to be given a different type of duty from that which they have at present.
