To go leor ceisteanna ardaithe agus déanfaidh mé iarracht iad a fhreagairt go sciobtha. What we are doing has no serious cost implications because of the way we are doing it. I doubt there are many signs in place where the words in Irish are in smaller print than those in English that will not be replaced long before 2026. Due to their natural lifecycle, most of the signs will be long gone before then and any new signs will have to comply with the regulations that the print size be the same in both Irish and English. There is no point in pushing the issue further and getting people's backs up on the issue. If I were to suggest all of the nonsensical signs in Irish should be taken down tomorrow, there would be outright war about the costs involved, but by allowing a five-year lead-in time, many of them will be due for renewal. The same applies to signs that are only in English. We must achieve a balance between where we would like to be and where we probably should have been 20 years ago. Through good practice all of this should have been done long ago. We need a realistic approach to get where we want to be without all the allegations that will be made about cost.
As regards logos, I have a certain sympathy with what an Seanadóir Ó Dochartaigh has been saying. However, the problem is that logos come in every make, shape and size. Sometimes words are written into the logos in English and, as in that one, it is beside it, but the DB is also in English. It may say ESB on the sign. Perfection can often be the enemy of achieving a good result. In a perfect world I would much prefer that all logos were in Irish and that VHI had started off with an Irish version, but it did not. Therefore I must start the journey from where we are. There is nothing to stop some future Minister dealing with that, if he or she thinks we have got to the stage of changing logos, but there is enough to bite off in what we are currently doing. It is a major step forward but it should be carefully crafted so as not to give ammunition to those who want to rubbish everything we are doing. All they have to do in order to cause trouble is pick one logo where the English wording is very much part of the logo. That will not stop all the agencies that are creating new logos from creating bilingual logos the next time. If one writes Dublin Bus separately from the logo, one must then write Bus Átha Cliath in letters of equal size.
The proposal to invite the Minister to discuss road signs is a good idea. The requirement that road signs showing the names of Gaeltacht places be in Irish only, in and outside the Gaeltacht, concerns the Official Languages Act. There are two separate issues. Road signs in general are clearly the responsibility of the Minister for Transport. As the Minister responsible for the Official Languages Act, I am willing to attend the committee to explain the raison d’être behind that and to tease it out.
An chéad rud eile, fógraíocht taobh amuigh den Stát. De réir na fianaise, 90% odd of fógraí réamhthaifeadta are inside the State. If we got that much done today, or signed off on it in the next few weeks, we would have made great progress. It is the issue of perfection being the enemy of achieving a good result, however. Many people who are putting these fógraí reamhthaifeadta in certain countries are not Irish themselves. We are not just talking about embassies, we are talking about Enterprise Ireland and Fáilte Ireland. It could perhaps be revisited in a year or two when this is bedded down, but it is premature at this stage. We are just pushing ourselves into a spot where that last bit would cause a lot of adverse comment for very little gain. That is my thinking on it. It is easy in the committees for all of us to have great enthusiasm to do the world in one day. If we try to do that, however, we could fall flat on our faces. If we settle for the 90% we are getting, however, which is carefully crafted not to have serious cost consequences, it will be bedded down quite nicely.
I dtaobh an phointe a bhí ag An dTeachta Upton, we can put English or Irish first. The regulation does not say which. However, there is a certain local authority that I have cause to ring now and again, which provides 15 menus. It is bilingual which makes it worse because it is unnecessary. Whether it is in Irish or English, one can spend half the afternoon trying to get an operator. There is a simple solution to that, which we have proposed time and again. That is why there is a long lead-in time of years to allow people to develop it. The simple solution is that one gets through to An Roinn Gnóthaí Pobail, Tuaithe agus Gaeltachta, and whoever answers says "An Roinn Gnóthaí Pobail, Tuaithe agus Gaeltachta — the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Do sheirbhís i nGaeilge, brú uimhir 1, for service in Irish, press 1, do sheirbhís i mBéarla, brú uimhir 2, for service in English, press 2." Then one can make the choice. That is all one has to have on the sign, after which one can have long menus if needed. I do not know why people have long menus on these answering machines, but if they want them at least callers will not have to hear the message twice. There is a lot of technology and a long lead-in of years before one has to do this. I have no doubt the technology will become even better. There are ways to avoid forcing people to listen to the same long message twice. There is nothing I abhor more than these long menus when one is seeking an operator. After two minutes, callers are told to press zero if they want the operator. I think I have dealt with that issue fairly.
I am told that State expenditure on advertising could run to well over €100 million, although I do not have a fix on it. We did a survey of advertising by Government Departments, the Office of Public Works and the Revenue Commissioners. They were spending €5.8 million on advertising. We know that €354,000 of that was spent on Irish-language publications. Some €538,000 was spent on Irish-language advertisements in English-language daily newspapers. We must debate a question at this committee, although we will not solve it today. We cannot force anybody to advertise anywhere; that is absolutely out of the question. However, we know that advertising rates in the English-language media are much more expensive than in the Irish-language media. We can skew the matter so that people have an option of putting an advertisement in The Irish Times, the Irish Independent or the Star. If people put it there, as long as they put a counterbalancing advertisement in Foinse or Lá, they are covered. If it is the same size, we know that the column inch in Foinse or Lá costs a fraction of a column inch in The Irish Times. It would be much cheaper for the agencies, so there would be a natural saving for them to put it in the Irish language newspapers. We must ask ourselves, however, if there is some great advantage in having the Irish and English versions in the English language newspapers. Some people say there is. Alternatively, if the €500,000 that Departments spend was spent in the Irish language media, it would translate into €200,000 or €300,000 because the rates are cheaper. It would double the amount of money they are getting in advertising from Departments overnight to €600,000. That would be a lot of extra money for them and would mean they could publish better periodicals and newspapers. There is an issue to debate in this respect. We have put this document into the public domain in the hope that people will consider the issues over the summer. We might revisit it in a focused way in the autumn. There are hard choices to be made. There will be different interesting opinions on the matter. We felt, however, that we should try as soon as possible to start the debate on this issue, which we do not see as being fundamental.
