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.