Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 30 Jan 1958

Vol. 48 No. 16

Restoration of the Irish Language—Motion (Resumed).

Aire Oideachais (Seán Ó Loingsigh)

Bhíos ag rá, sar ar scar an Seanad roimh tae, go labhróinn as Béarla, i dtreo is go dtuigfeadh na Seanadóirí go léir an méid atá le rá agam as seo amach.

As I have said, the mover of the motion has not put the question of the revival of the language in issue, as I expected. Most of those who have spoken so far have adopted the same line and have shown themselves to be fully in support of the revival of the language as a vernacular. Even those who did not appear to be favourable were anxious at least that some form of inquiry be set up. They suggested, as indeed did some of the other speakers, that if an inquiry is to be set up, it should be conducted in a realistic attitude. I do not think it is fair to suggest that to be a realist, one must be a defeatist—as appears to be the suggestion made by some of the speakers.

This is a national question and it has been consistently declared to be the policy of all Governments since the State was established. Even though it is suggested from time to time that one Department more than another, or more than any others, should be responsible in the main for the attempt at revival, I must insist that, this being fundamental Government policy, it is the responsibility of all Departments. There are two Departments with special responsibility in that regard—the Department of Education, which is responsible for the educational system, and the Department of the Gaeltacht, which was so recently set up.

The statement made by successive Governments, as to the fundamental policy being towards the revival of the language, has been declared in a statutory form in connection with the Bill that set up the Department of the Gaeltacht. Probably it was in this form that for the first time it appeared as a statutory declaration. I referred the Seanad already to the relevant section—Section 3 (2) of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act, 1956—in which the function of the Department of the Gaeltacht was set forth. In suggesting the various methods that might be employed in that Department, in co-operation with others, it concluded with these words:

"... which affect the cultural, social or economic welfare of the Gaeltacht or which concern the national aim of restoring the Irish language."

We can take it, therefore, that that is our policy and our intention. No Government has declared anything to the contrary.

If there is to be an inquiry, I suggest that the emphasis should rather be on what further or other steps can henceforth be taken, rather than an examination of what has been done. The wording of the motion itself is rather comprehensive and I would suggest that, in the form in which it is set forth, the stress appears to be on an examination of what has been done. There is no distinction in the form of the motion between what has been done by the State and what has been done by voluntary and other bodies. In that respect, I suggest that the motion as it stands is too wide and would impose a very great onus on anybody who might be asked to inquire into the intention of the motion.

As I said, the Department of Education, while it is not responsible for fundamental State policy in this respect, has a particular responsibility and a particular concern in so far as it regulates the conditions under which our schools are run. Therefore, perhaps it would be opportune, in relation to that part of the motion which refers to an examination of what has been done, to give a short résumé of the position of the teaching of Irish in the schools and what the fundamental policy is.

One of the main lines of attack on the language of the people by the invader, so many centuries ago, was through the schools. Perhaps the greatest blow against the Irish language was its exclusion for almost three centuries from State-aided schools. From the establishment of the parish schools by Henry VIII down to the 1880's, if Irish was ever given place in the various school systems, it was for the purpose of proselytising the people and so that they might more readily and quickly learn English and be anglicised generally.

It was proscribed and outlawed from the schools because the invader felt it was the symbol of the separate Irish nationality. His aim was to cut off the Gael from the inspiration of the past, to leave the Irish people without a knowledge of the culture and achievements of their forebears, to prevail on them to look upon themselves as being without hope for the future, except in so far as they might be prepared to conform with the customs and ways and language of the invader.

Whilst it is perfectly true that the language cannot be revived through the schools alone, and I subscribe wholeheartedly to what Senators Hayes and Ó Siochfhrada said in this respect, it is equally true that if the schools do not make the effort, the attempt at revival might well fail. There are almost 500,000 of our young people conveniently assembled in the schools. They are assembled there for the purpose of learning and it is more convenient, and certainly it is bound to be more fruitful, to base our main efforts at revival on them rather than on any other body of our people. It is, of course, through the schools that we can really ensure the revival of the language.

There is, I believe, general agreement amongst educational authorities that the period when children are best suited to learn a language for colloquial purposes is between the ages of four and eight years. Naturally, it would, I am sure, require a greater expenditure of time and energy to impart a vernacular at a later stage. We have all of us seen instances where children are placed in the charge of governesses and can readily acquire, under their tuition, a knowledge of and a colloquial power over two or may be three languages.

If a colloquial knowledge of Irish is imparted to infant classes, I think it is reasonable to assume that much time and energy will be spared in later times. The continuous use of Irish necessary to obtain the best results can be secured in the infant classes, I believe, without imposing an undue burden on the children. But it is of the utmost importance in that respect that the tuition of the children be entrusted to teachers who are properly qualified to impart that colloquial knowledge, people who are well equipped in speaking and writing Irish itself.

I think it is clear, too, that much of the criticism of the policy of teaching through the medium of Irish comes from persons who have not acquainted themselves with the conditions laid down—the conditions which are laid down in the Department's regulations, and which must be satisfied before such teaching is permitted. It is, unfortunately, too often the case that opposition to Irish as a medium of instruction is due to false reasoning based on mere prejudice against the language. As in other educational questions, many of those who express the loudest dissatisfaction with existing aims and methods allow themselves to be unduly influenced by what they have heard, or perhaps by what they would prefer to believe the position is, rather than what the actual conditions are. Too often, they ignore the opinions of those who are in the best position of offer judgment on the work that is done in the schools.

If we accept, and I think it is generally accepted, that if a colloquial knowledge of the language can be imparted more readily at these ages, between four and eight, I think it would be well to refer at this stage to what the rules are in relation to teaching Irish and teaching generally in the national schools. The first official document concerning the teaching of Irish was a circular issued in 1922 which was prepared by the Irish Provisional Government. The circular is described "Fogra Puibli Uimhir 4, Ministry of Education. Concerning the teaching of Irish language in the national schools." It says, in paragraph one, that, "The Irish language shall be taught, or used as a medium of instruction, for not less than one full hour each day in all national schools where there is a teacher competent to teach it".

I think the first, and possibly the continued description of the teaching of the language as a compulsory subject emanated from that rule which was made, as I said, in February, 1922. In April, 1922, a new programme of instruction prepared by the National Programme Conference, and accepted by the Government, provided that where it was impracticable to introduce the new programme in its entirety, each pupil should receive instruction in Irish for at least one hour per day as an ordinary school subject. The programme also provided that, in infant standards, the work was to be entirely in Irish.

The National Programme Conference was set up by the I.N.T.O. and comprised representatives of that body and the Department of Education. In a circular addressed to inspectors in November, 1922, it was stated it was realised that the teaching of infants entirely through Irish would not be feasible in a large number of schools, but even in such schools it was expected that steps would be taken to provide at least one hour per day for the gradual extension of the use of Irish. The second National Programme Conference was set up in June, 1925, and included representatives of the I.N.T.O., the managers and of the Department of Education. Its report of March, 1926, contained the following:—

"The work in the infant classes between the hours of 10.30 and 2 o'clock is to be entirely in Irish where teachers are sufficiently qualified."

A further circular was issued, No. 11 of 1931, on teaching through the medium of Irish. In that circular were laid down the conditions which were expected to exist before the policy of the Department should be implemented in relation to the teaching of Irish. These conditions are still part of the rules of the Department to this day, and they include: "where a teacher is competent to teach through Irish, and where children can assimilate the teaching so given, the teacher should endeavour to extend the use of Irish as a medium of instruction as far as possible. Where these conditions do not exist, such teaching through Irish is not obligatory."

Later on, it was suggested that the inspectors, as it was suggested here, were rather severe in interpreting and enforcing these rules, whereupon in March, 1936, a further circular was issued in the following terms:—

"In regard to the question of teaching through the medium of Irish it is considered necessary to direct inspectors' attention to the circular of July, 1931, dealing with this question, and particularly to the warning it contains as against using Irish as a teaching medium in classes where the conditions set out as necessary for the success of such teaching are not present."

The regulation requiring the work to be entirely in Irish in infant classes where teachers were qualified was amended in 1948 to allow the teaching of English for a half hour per day, where managers so desired. It is clear this concoction of "compulsory Irish" does not contain all that the enemies of Irish suggest when they bandy about this poltergeist of compulsory Irish being to the disadvantage of the language. With regard to the general results achieved in national schools and the effect, good or bad, that teaching through Irish in national schools has had, I will comment at a later stage.

I think we should realise that the Department of Education lays down the conditions under which certain subjects are taught. Our system of education is rather a free one. It gives those in charge of imparting knowledge, those who manage schools and those who teach in schools, a reasonable degree of flexibility so that they may use their own experience to impart knowledge properly. The teachers are not employees of the Department; they are employees of the managers of the schools. It is true the Department pays the national teachers their salaries, but, apart from laying down the qualifications necessary to become a teacher qualified to teach in national schools, and the managers having regard to these regulations when they appoint teachers to particular schools, the relationship between employer and employee does not apply further to the Department of Education.

In vocational schools, the teaching of Irish is continued in various degrees. The vocational school has three main functions, the first of which is to give post-primary education and pre-employment education to boys and girls who want further education and who are anxious to take up employment in later years, probably at the ages of 16 or 17. The second is to provide technical education for trade apprentices and others already in employment and the third is to give practical and general education to adults. In relation to the first function, to give continuation education and technical education to preemployment students, it has, as one of the continuation subjects, Irish prescribed in the programme. So also is English and other ordinary subjects. Again, there is no compulsion in respect of Irish beyond the other subjects.

Irish is a subject in the continuation course, but the rule required for a vocational teacher is that he possess the Ceard Teastas Gaeilge, a certificate to the effect that he is able to speak and write Irish, and if necessary, teach through Irish. With regard to teachers of Irish and continuation subjects, the qualification is rather higher, the Teastas Timire Gaeilge; but there are certain exceptions where certain technicians qualified in Irish. It is permitted that such qualified persons may teach in vocational schools even though they do not know Irish.

In some of the vocational schools, there are evening Irish classes for adults and we cannot claim, in fairness, that they are satisfactorily attended in all centres. Nevertheless, the degree of attendance of parents and adults generally at these evening Irish classes is reasonable. The people who attend these classes are people who want to learn Irish and, unlike the people Senator Hayes would appear to have met in Gaeltacht areás, do not want to have the Irish for any particular purpose other than to know their own language. A few vocational committees have special organisers of Irish who make contacts with different groups throughout the vocational committees' administrative areas and they promote the extension of the use of Irish in these different organisations.

With regard to the secondary schools, teachers, of course, will have to be qualified in the particular subjects which they teach. Again, the Department has no direct control over the teachers. The teachers are employed by the managers of the secondary schools and all secondary schools are private schools. Teachers come under the Registration Council which is a statutory body comprised of teachers' organisations. It lays down the qualifications necessary for a secondary teacher and the qualification in relation to Irish was introduced by that council in 1942. It required that there be an oral examination in Irish for teachers from that year. Again, there is no compulsion by the Department. If there is compulsion on the teachers to know Irish, it is one imposed by themselves through their Registration Council.

There is, of course, a wide variety of approved subjects not taught through Irish in secondary schools, subjects which will be recognised by the Department and in respect of which capitation grants will be paid, if these subjects are taught for a certain minimum of hours. Irish is one of these and, in fact, must be one. Again, if there is compulsion in that, I fail to see any offensive degree of compulsion.

There are certain inducements given to schools to teach through the medium of Irish—schools described as A. schools, which give teaching in all subjects, except English, through the medium of Irish. They get certain increased capitation grants in respect of teaching through Irish. There are also B. 1 and B. 2 schools which get extra grants in a varying degree in relation to the amount of Irish used in the course of the teaching in these schools. I do not think I will have time to go into all the details of Irish teaching in secondary schools and the inducements given to encourage the use of Irish in these schools. I repeat it is not compulsion but inducement.

Special scholarships are available to students from Gaeltacht areas to secondary schools. Beyond the secondary school level, special scholarships are given to students of secondary schools to pursue courses in Irish in universities. There are also special scholarships given to secondary students from Gaeltacht areas to pursue university courses after they leave the secondary schools. These are all inducements; certainly no compulsion is attached to them. I do not want to dwell any more on the set-up in the schools—national, vocational and secondary. I hope I have given a reasonable outline of how the teaching of Irish is pursued and what conditions are laid down in respect of the various schools.

With regard to the motion, which is much wider than the examination of what has been done in the schools, I must say that, when I saw it, I thought it had been prompted by the controversy we have recently read in the public Press, but I accept entirely from Senator Baxter that the motion was contemplated——

Mr. Baxter

It was drafted long before it.

Mr. Lynch

I am accepting that entirely, but having regard to the coincidence of time, one would be forgiven, I hope, for taking that view.

This controversy was sparked off, perhaps, by certain statements made by different persons and organisations, perhaps primarily by the lecture given during the course of the British Association meeting in Dublin, last September. It is impossible in this address to deal with all the points that were raised in the course of these lectures, statements and letters, anonymous and otherwise, to the public Press, but it might be well to mention some of the arguments that were made.

One of them was to the effect that our language teaching system was a contributory cause to emigration. I think that, on examination, that falls to the ground completely in so far as emigration is heaviest from areas where there is no problem about teaching Irish. It is lightest on the eastern coast. In fact, in times of ordinary economic circumstances, there is very little emigration from the big centres on the eastern coast where difficulties in relation to the learning of the language might well be experienced by students attending schools.

Some arguments were advanced on false premises. For example, it was stated—and I think the report of the Council for Education was given as the authority for this statement—that in only 25 schools out of the total of 4,870 was English used as a medium of instruction in all subjects, other than Irish. As somebody said, it is easy to quote statistics and produce lies and all kinds of lies. It would certainly be strange if—as it appeared to whoever used that argument—in the balance of the 4,800 odd schools, the conditions which are required by the Department to exist before instruction is given in Irish did, in fact, exist.

The facts are that, out of the total of 4,869 national schools, teaching through Irish is confined to infants in the case of 1,693 schools and it does not go beyond first standard in 253 other schools. All instruction is given through Irish in 393 schools, 300 of which are situated in Gaeltacht areas. Again, we can see how something bordering on mass hysteria can give an unnecessarily wrong impression of what the facts really are.

Wild charges have been made with regard to the alleged illiteracy or semi-illiteracy of our children leaving national schools. In that regard, I want to come back to what I have been saying about the teaching of Irish to pupils of national schools. The general average figure of those who procure passes or passes with honours in the Intermediate and Leaving Certificate examinations is about 80 per cent. At present, there is the compulsory examination for primary students, the Primary Certificate examination, which is held in the subjects Irish, English and arithmetic and which is compulsory for all pupils on the rolls of sixth and higher standards in national schools, pupils who had not previously sat for this examination. To pass this examination, all that is necessary is that pass standard will be reached in all three subjects.

During the past five years, the position in relation to that examination has been as follows. In 1953, 32,094 candidates sat and 25,599 passed, a percentage of 77.1. I will skip some of the other years as the figures are roughly the same until 1957. In 1957, 37,450 candidates sat and 29,237 passed, a percentage of 78.1. It will be seen that the percentage of those who pass this primary schools examination bears comparison with those who pass the certificate examinations in the secondary schools course.

Professor Hayes

The ones that fail are not illiterate.

Mr. Lynch

The ones that fail are not illiterate. The Sunday Independent, in some of its leading articles, particularly grasped the suggestion contained in some anonymous letters, allegedly from teachers, that pupils are leaving our national schools in an illiterate state. They have perhaps relied to some extent on statements, anonymous and otherwise, made by individual teachers, practically all of them unidentified. I should like to refer to the considered statement of the I.N.T.O. in relation to this controversy and particularly in relation to the charge in the Sunday Independent, to which I have referred. I will not quote it at too much length because I am sure everybody interested in the debate will have read it already. It is from the Sunday Independent of 12th January, 1958, and is as follows:—

"The General Secretary of the I.N.T.O., Mr. D.J. Kelleher, sent us a statement last night which says:—

"The C.E.C. of the I.N.T.O. desire to challenge the misleading statements made in the special article and editorial in recent issues of the Sunday Independent regarding the standard of education reached in Irish primary schools.

"From the ample opportunities available to their members to make a comparative assessment of the educational standards reached in other countries, and from the opinions expressed by visiting educationists, they have no hesitation in saying that the attainments of children, age for age, in our primary schools, in subjects other than Irish, are at least as high as, if not higher than, those which obtain in any other English-speaking country."

It goes on to deal with the minority of those who might well be subject for these charges of illiterary and in relation to the writers of the article and of the other efforts that are published it says:—

"The C.E.C. can only conclude that their contentions have been based on the experience of the backward and retarded minority of school children, a minority which is creating a problem for educationists in all countries..."

I think we can take it that the I.N.T.O. are a responsible body in that respect and that we can accept their considered opinion, given over the signature of their secretary and emanating from the highest authority of that body. Before I pass from that, I think I should pay a tribute at this stage to the national teachers generally for the part they have played and continue to play in the revival efforts. I think they are the mainspring of the effort, certainly in so far as it relates to school going children of all ages. In many respects in voluntary organisations which work for the restoration of the language these teachers are very much to the fore.

Many people who believe in the restoration of the language as a vernacular have pointed to what has been done in other countries. Some of the appeals, if they might be termed such, to conditions in other countries have been summarily dismissed by the antagonists of the language. With regard to Wales, it is true that their object is largely one of maintaining a bilingual position. Nevertheless with Wales practically completely integrated with British economy—it has no separate Parliament of its own—one cannot but admire the efforts of the Welsh people to maintain their own language and so have a direct contact with their cultural past and with their past as an independent nation. There are throughout Wales, particularly in the western portion, huge towns which are completely Welsh-speaking towns. Even though there has been in this country an English infiltration, nevertheless, from what we can read, the people of Wales are determined to maintain their language. Despite the infiltration and despite the fact they are so integrated with the English economy and social life, they are making commendable efforts and are succeeding admirably in maintaining their own language.

Reference was made here to Hebrew. I can well understand that no parallel can be drawn with our conditions and those which prevail in Israel. The people of Israeli, coming at they do from different European countries where different languages are spoken, England, Hungary, parts of East Germany and Poland, will wish to find a common means of interpersonal communication. Perhaps purely for the purpose of trade, commerce and convenience, it may have been far easier for them to learn German—perhaps the majority of them know German of a kind—or French or English; nevertheless, they chose Hebrew. Hebrew is now in general use as a living language amongst the people of Israeli. I am not claiming it is a parallel but it is a good indication of what the will of the people can achieve if they so wanted.

I think the situation in South Africa is probably somewhat more akin to our own. Nevertheless, again, I do not claim it to be a parallel. Afrikaans is now in reasonable use in South Africa. Like our own language, Afrikaans may not be of any use to anybody once he leaves the shores of his own country. Nevertheless, before the time the Nationalist Party exercised any reasonable degree of influence in South Africa, there was amongst the people there a desire to maintain Afrikaans as a living tongue. Particularly since the Nationalist Party became powerful and had influence, the extension of the use of Afrikaans is remarkable.

I think the period roughly coincides with our own time of self government, 35 years, and Afrikaans has developed considerably in that period not only as a means of communication in all fields of trade and commerce but as a literary and cultural language. There is in existence at the present time, even within that short period, prose and poetry in Afrikaans of a very high quality.

Perhaps a better example would be the effort made in that part of Denmark which was invaded by Germany many years ago—South Sleswig. I do not think I can do better than to quote from a talk from Radio Éireann some couple of years ago entitled "The Return of a Language" by a lady whose name is Ceinwen H. Thomas, in order to illustrate how well people who desired the return of their language under conditions similar in many ways to what we are faced with here succeeded:

"As a result of German political and educational policies, the Danish language had practically died out there by the inter-war years and been replaced by Low German. After the return of North Sleswig to Denmark in 1920 a movement began in the South also for political reunion with the land of their fathers and to regain their historic mother tongue to set an unmistakable seal on their Danishness.

"But how can a language once lost be regained? The answer of South Sleswig was: by the founding of schools, which should make it their special task to give their pupils a fully Danish education in a Danish setting and using the Danish language as the medium of that education even while teaching it to their pupils. This is not a new ideal. It is the system that was used with such devastating success in teaching English to the children of Ireland and the children of Wales. The difference is that the system is being used in South Sleswig, not to thrust an alien language upon an unwilling population, but to restore the lost native language."

She goes on:—

"The demand has been so great that already some 85 schools with about 14,000 pupils have been established and their number is still growing. The success of their language policy has been remarkable. Though few of their pupils know one word of Danish on entering the schools, they are fluently Danish speaking and can follow their lessons in that language with ease and profit in about two years."

To add force to this illustration, she continues:—

"The linguistic situation in these schools is very complex. The language spoken by the people is Low German, but the only German recognised by the German State is High German, a language very different from it in vocabulary and syntax. Hence High German must be taught in the Danish schools of South Sleswig as thoroughly as Danish. This means that every child in those schools is daily handling three languages, two of which, Danish and High German, are new to him. To add to the complexity of the situation, there is a considerable minority of North Frisians inhabiting the Vesterland islands and the coastal areas opposite them. These are as anxious as the Danes for the restoration of their language and have joined with them in setting up Danish schools. In the Frisian districts, therefore, Danish schools must include Frisian in their studies, adding yet a fourth language to the number in use."

I shall make just one or two other quotations from this document:—

"From the moment the children enter the schools, only Danish is used in theory at least, in their instruction. In actual practice, a little Low German is mixed with the Danish in the very early stages, while the children are acquiring a basic vocabulary. The small children are no problem for they learn Danish very easily."

Then she refers to the system in Wales in these terms:—

"An objection often raised in Wales when we advocate teaching of Welsh to non-Welsh speaking children is that it is harmful to a child's development to have a second language introduced too early in his school life. When I asked the teachers in the Danish schools their opinion on this question, they were much amused, even those in the Frisian districts. On the contrary, they said, nothing but good can come from teaching languages to children at the earliest opportunity, especially the native tongue which they have lost."

Later on, she says:—

"Another advantage was that the learning of other languages increased a child's capacity for language learning, while his acquaintance with the different habits of thought reflected in the different structures and idioms of different languages sharpens his perception and strengthens his memory and gives him a better understanding of other people and sympathy for them."

She concludes:—

"I returned home, not a little envious of the South Sleswigers with their wonderful schools. Here was no ‘murder machine'"...

—in Patrick Pearse's eloquent phrase—

... "but a hearth at which the despoiled members of the national family were welcomed home and given back their full Danish inheritance."

I think the experience of this lady, who is herself a teacher and obviously a language enthusiast, in South Sleswig, should be an inspiration to us here in Ireland. I would submit conditions there are very much akin to what we experience in this country. The people, as she said, ardently desire the return of their own language and to be one with their own Danish people.

In regard to our own problem, I think it must be said, having regard to what we have seen in South Sleswig, that the principal method available to the Government to further the revival of Irish is to work through the schools, and if the effort in the schools is to be general and effective, there must be that degree of laying-down of the necessary requirements, laying down of the qualifications that teachers must have, and of what the programme should be. Again, I must repeat it is governed by the two considerations that the teacher himself or herself must be in a position to impart knowledge and the children must be able to acquire that knowledge through Irish with advantage.

I do not wish to delay the House because I realise other speakers would like to contribute to this debate, but I should like to make a short reference to points made by previous speakers. Senator McGuire mentioned early in his speech that the views of the right people are not taken into consideration. I waited for him to develop what he had in mind in that regard, but he left it there. As I have already pointed out, the I.N.T.O. has always been represented at conferences in relation to programmes and, to my knowledge, they have always been given an opportunity to comment on any change of programme. As far as I am concerned, at any time teachers wish to put views before me on educational matters—and I am sure the same applied to my predecessor— they are never denied an opportunity.

Senator McGuire suggested we should have regard to economic conditions first. I would suggest economic conditions are not being prejudiced to any extent by our desire to teach our people their own language, but if, as he suggests, we should ignore, the teaching of the language until we are completely self sufficient economically, I think it is only too obvious it would then be too late.

I am not competent to deal to any extent—certainly not as competent as Senator Hayes himself—with what he described as "economic preferences", but I have a full belief in the efficacy and integrity of our Local Appointments Commission. I am not in a position to know exactly how they decide in relation to different appointments, but I believe from people who have appeared before boards of the commission for different positions on numerous occasions—and I refer mostly to doctors seeking dispensaries—that the lack of Irish alone is not a bar to getting a position. In other words, anybody whether he knows Irish or not, will not get a position, unless he is qualified according to the terms of the advertisement. I think that is generally accepted among applicants seeking these posts. The better man gets the post and if he does not get there now and again because of some forgetfulness or something of that kind, he will ultimately surface on his technical or academic merits.

Senator Dr. Sheehy Skeffington referred to the fact that the General Certificate in Education can be procured in England without the candidate doing any English in his examination. There is at that secondary school level in England a degree of specialisation which I do not believe would be generally acceptable here. I think the general point of view in relation to secondary education is that specialisation should not be indulged in at that age and that any specialisation to come would be better based on a sounder and broader general education. Although people in England may perhaps acquire that certificate without English, I do not believe we would like anybody to acquire his Leaving Certificate here without a good standard of English, or without any of the ordinarily accepted subjects.

With regard to Senator Sheehy Skeffington's suggestion that there is no freedom in Irish education and his extended use of Padraig Pearse's words, the import of those words would hardly apply to the present day. These words were spoken when much different educational conditions prevailed, 40 years ago. He objected to what he described as "mise le meas" Irish. I have often seen people expressing themselves in newspaper articles and letters to newspapers, when occasionally they introduce a French word or a French phrase in the course of their English letter or English article, because they believe that in that way they can better express what they want to convey. If a person wants to express himself adequately and if he feels he can express himself by using a particular Irish phrase or word in an English letter, it is a good thing that he should do so and I would not describe it as in any way "mise le meas" Irish.

The Senator's criticism of our textbooks would take far too long to answer, but I would remind him, and I would remind the House, that it is not easy to finance the publication of Irish text-books having regard to the size of the market. As he readily admitted, there are some fine examples of textbooks printed in Irish, properly illustrated, but then there are some that we would like to improve very considerably. We must bear in mind that there is that financial difficulty which it is not easy to overcome in our circumstances.

The Senator mentioned that the language is now treated as a dead language, in so far as there is no oral examination in Irish in the schools. He did say that I announced some time ago my intention to introduce a system of oral Irish examination in the secondary certificate examinations. As Senator Ó Ciosáin pointed out, there are many difficulties that might not suggest themselves readily to those who ardently desire an oral Irish examination.

First of all, there are about 12,000 students who take the Intermediate Certificate examination and 6,000 who take the Leaving Certificate examination. To examine 18,000 students within a reasonable time and to maintain a reasonably level and fair standard is pregnant with difficulties, difficulties that it is not very easy to overcome. Nevertheless, it is hoped that in a short time we will have oral Irish examinations and in that respect we hope to advise the schools managers shortly and, as we are obliged to do in relation to any change in the examination system, particularly for the Leaving Certificate, to advise also the university authorities that it is proposed, as a start, to introduce an oral Irish examination in the secondary Leaving Certificate. That will embrace the examination in oral Irish of 6,000 students and, in order to make it fair, all the students must be examined reasonably about the same time and by people who are used to conducting such examinations.

Therefore, one can readily realise that it will require quite a staff of examiners and the only way we can do that is to utilise all the examiners available to us, all the people who are used to conducting examinations, especially oral examinations, and especially oral examinations in Irish. I think we can find no better body with sufficient numbers than the primary school inspectors. The number of secondary school Irish inspectors is not sufficient to carry out such an examination. Therefore, if it is to be done, it must be done with the aid of primary school inspectors.

We hope that it is in that manner that it will be done and that the examination can be conducted in a reasonable period of time, ten or 12 days. That certainly would meet any objections that the same standard might not be applied or that the examination was not conducted within a reasonably short period in order to ensure that students would have the same opportunity, from the point of view of time, to acquire passes or honours in these examinations.

I do not think it is necessary to go into this matter at this stage because the details have not been worked out, nor have the school managers or the university authorities been notified, beyond what I am saying here to-night, but we do hope that within a short period—I cannot say how long or how we will be able to have that oral Irish examination and that that will satisfy the desire of many people. It certainly will meet the challenge of Senator Sheehy Skeffington that we are treating Irish in the schools as a dead language.

I think the critics of our achievements to date are anxious to ignore the facts. It can be safely said that, as a result of the work in the schools, Irish is known now, to a greater or smaller extent, by many more people than knew it 35 years ago. I think we can reasonably claim that there is a broad basis established from which we can go forward to greater effort; but, no matter what is done in the schools, no matter how proficient we make students, unless the people themselves have the will, the desire, to use Irish, particularly when they leave school, the work in the school will have had very little fruit.

Reference has been made to the difficulties of the present day which were not in existence 25 years ago. Radio, television, motion pictures and the facility of travel are all influences which 30 years ago were not in existence or not in existence to the same extent as they are to-day. I think we can claim, even though we may not be satisfied with the progress, that we have made a good deal of progress.

Finally, I should like to say that if we allow the Irish language to die, we shall have broken the only link between us and the period of Gaelic independence and we shall have made inevitable our complete absorption by the influence and way of life of our more powerful neighbours and our complete disappearance as a separate and distinct people. More than that, we will have acted in a manner contrary to the practice in other resurgent nations whose first care is and always was through the ages to direct their earliest efforts in their new-found freedom towards restoring or strengthening their national language. From the historical and the national point of view, the determination to revive Irish requires neither explanation nor justification. Explanation and justification would, I believe, be necessary if the contrary were our policy.

Professor Hayes

Would the Minister say what his view is with regard to the motion? Is he accepting the motion in this form or in any other form?

Mr. Lynch

The Taoiseach might like to get in at a later stage and give an indication. If not, I shall say a few words.

Professor Hayes

Very good.

Dr. O'Donovan

I very much regret to say that the nature of the Minister's speech here to-night is such that I find it difficult not to be extremely sad. I doubt if a lot of the speech was at all relevant to the motion. When the Leas-Chathaoirleach was in the Chair, he stopped Senator Sheehy Skeffington more than once from proceeding very much along the same line.

There has been a suggestion that this motion was put down because of some influence. It was not put down because of that. As a matter of fact, I regretted having put my name to it when I saw the nature of the campaign being waged by certain people—and they were not the people attacking Irish, assuming that certain people were attacking Irish. It was the other gentlemen—gentlemen such as Deputy Boland, Minister for Defence, who was reported in the Irish Independent of Monday last as saying:—

"It was a pity to see prominent educationists adopting the same attitude as the traditionally anti-national Press and ignoring the facts that were easily available in the annual examination results——"

These are the statistics, presumably, to which the Minister was referring: "lies, damned lies and statistics". It is rather hard on his colleague.

"——in an attempt to prove the ridiculous thesis that while the teaching of Latin, Greek, French, German or Russian was beneficial to a student's mind it was mental murder to teach him the language of his forefathers."

The truth of the matter is that there are many people who are extremely doubtful as to whether the teaching of Latin, Greek, and so on, to a majority of the children in secondary schools is beneficial to them and there is good reason for thinking that, which I shall come to later.

The bulk of the Minister's case, naturally, dealt with the national schools. I think five out of six of our children never go beyond the national school. Let us consider the quotation from the speech by the Minister for Defence, which I have just read. Who ever suggested the teaching of Latin, Greek, and so on, in the national schools—though, when I was at a national school, I learned Latin and Greek roots, but that was rather a different matter. The Minister for Defence then went on to say that he had done certain things in the Army, provided that "military efficiency was not to be adversely effected". I suppose that either the Irish Independent or himself spelled the word wrong. The Irish Independent is pretty good at complaining about the way other people spell words but they are pretty good at it themselves. I saw an example recently where they reviewed a book and made complaints about misprints in it but their own paper that day had the worst misprints I have ever seen.

Though the speech of the Minister for Defence on that occasion contained a lot of political matter, his comments on the Irish language would seem to have taken up the bigger section. I know nothing about the nature of the campaign being waged in relation to the teaching of Irish in the schools. I have no contact with such people, but I have certain work which I must perform and I draw certain conclusions from that.

Before I continue on that line, I should like to refer to the Minister's opening statement. I had the circular "11 of 31" last night. I thought: "This is the year 1958. Why would you go back to a circular ‘11 of 31'"? But the Minister was not content with doing that. He—I take it, on the advice of his Department—went back three centuries. He talked about the exclusion of Irish for three centuries from State-aided schools. The truth of the matter is that there have not been State-aided schools in this country for three centuries. The present national school system is not in existence for much longer than a century. If we are to talk historically, then let us do so.

In the 15th century in this country, Irish had defeated both English and French. It was the weakness of this country, from the point of view of organisation as a State-something that had been completed in France in the 11th century and in Britain in Tudor times—which saw itself defeated here in the 16th and 17th centuries.

I always thought Mr. Seán Ó Faoláin, in The Great O'Neill, gave a fairly accurate description of the Irish scheme of things, whatever its merits or defects. Some of it may have been inference, but it was logical, historically-deduced inference. The adverse reviews of that book did not make any impression on me. With military defeat, the Irish schools rapidly decayed. Despite that, Irish, as the vernacular of the people, continued to flourish for the great majority of the people until after the Famine. These are the facts—if we are going to talk history. Senator Ó Siochfhradha said: “Do chuala me tuarmí nach bhfuil bunaithe ar fhírinne chruinn.” I was not here for all of Senator Sheehy Skeffington's speech but I have not often heard him give vent to “tuairmí nach bhfuil bunaithe ar fhírinne chruinn.”

The Minister used the phrase "bordering on mass hysteria." The last time this problem blew up—I use that phrase to describe something I thought I discovered in the limited investigations I made in the matter— was in the 1935, 1936, 1937 period of years. That was the last time it blew up in public—22 years ago. Anybody who suggests that—because of what, I do not know—it should blow up now, that it should be blown up by some people, would not, I think, appreciate the concern of the people about the matter. If the Minister and his staff down in Marlborough Street are wrapping themselves in some kind of cloak of fog from the Liffey, we shall find one day in this country that it will be people like Senator Sheehy Skeffington and myself who will be saving Irish as a subject in the schools. That is what we shall find.

I do not like to see people who should have an appreciation of what their duty is to the public wrapping themselves up in circulars, words, phrases and examples from Israel to South Africa in a matter which I think, at any rate, is of very serious concern. The Irish revival movement was a most remarkable movement, and it was most unfortunate that its literary flowering was in the English language and not in the Irish language. It does not need any demonstration by me. I have heard people say that outstandingly the best English was written in this country, by men born in this country and who lived here for most of their lives, in the whole of the English-speaking world, during the first 30 years of this century. It was a remarkable achievement, and it is greatly to be regretted that it did not occur in the Irish language.

The proposer of the motion referred to the civil war—he did not call it a civil war, but I do not mind calling it a civil war, and it was a civil war—and he talked about the disillusionment which followed it. It is no use for elderly people to deny that. I remember the civil war, I was old enough to remember it and I remember the disillusionment which followed it, and I remember going into University College, Dublin, as a student and the atmosphere that I found there. I think the Irish language was the great casualty of the civil war. The one thing after the civil war which would have saved the Irish language would have been—if it had been possible and if there had been a unanimous effort by the people—the setting up of a standard grammer and a standard spelling. I think it is much more relevant to this motion to follow that particular problem through time—and even with my limited knowledge, I think I could do it reasonably well— than the Minister following circulars.

An Cathaoirleach

The Chair is the judge of order and relevancy.

Dr. O'Donovan

Well, Sir, I think it is much more relevant to this motion and to the revival of the language.

An Cathaoirleach

The Minister was perfectly relevant and the Senator must not continue to challenge the Chair on that matter. The Senator to continue on the motion.

Dr. O'Donovan

Sir, I was not challenging the Chair on that matter. A single phrase in developing an argument is not a challenge to the Chair.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator has referred on a number of occasions during his speech to irrelevancies permitted in the discussion.

Dr. O'Donovan

Well, instead of this effort to make a standard grammar and a standard spelling, what had we? We had the main Opposition Party of the day developing a campaign against every step that the Government of the day took towards the revival of Irish. We had the new spelling attacked; we had reversions backwards and movements forwards; and eventually—I am not going into the details—we had the Caighdeán Oifigiúil adopted. I think it was extremely late in the day—too late—to achieve what most of us hoped would be achieved.

Now, in connection with my remarks that it was a pity that the literary flowering did not occur in the Irish language, let me say this: without pretending to know the whole of Irish literature, I may say there are certain people who did write very good and interesting Irish from a literary point of view. What I hear from everybody concerned about it is that Pádraig Pearse was outstandingly good. The trouble about Pádraig Pearse was that his books were books for children from ten to 12 years of age. That is the problem I will have to come back to later on, the problem I feel the Minister did not deal with, of decent senior textbooks. I did not feel that his answer on it, about financial difficulties, was at all adequate. If his Department had given a little more attention to it than to the pursuit of other lines, we would have better results to-day. The Minister gave us a great deal of information, but I should like to ask the Minister one question—which I did not like to put at the end of his speech—is it or is it not true that Irish is on the ordinary national school programme and is supposed to get eight and a half hours a week out of 22½?

Mr. Lynch

I would have to look into the regulations on that point. Since the Senator has asked me a question—perhaps I did not make it clear during my speech that I am not averse to the reappraisal of the teaching policy in the national schools.

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister said it in a sentence or two. I felt extremely sad that he spoke at such length to defend the policy which has achieved nothing, but, on the contrary, less than nothing. The eight and a half hours to which I referred is 40 per cent. of the time. The Minister said he gives general directions and does not lay down the rules absolutely. Why do I feel so badly about this? To-day in Dublin if you travel on the buses, as I do frequently, your chances of hearing a conversation in Irish—I challenge anyone to deny this—are infinitely less than they were in 1927 or 1937. You will be much more likely to hear a conversation in Yiddish or in French. You will be much more likely, in the area of the city where I live, to hear a conversation in Yiddish. It is some years since I heard a conversation in Irish on a Dublin bus.

The seriousness of this matter is that everybody is concerned about it. Let us take the statement of Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge. They admit they are investigating it. There was a statement this morning from another body, Cara, which said that they feel an attack is being made on the language, but they end up by saying the matter should be reappraised.

I should like to give my own experience about one matter which I feel must derive to some extent from the nature of the policy being followed by the Department of Education. There is unanimity among the professors of English in the university colleges in this country that the standard of English at matriculation is deplorably low. Unanimity is something you do not often achieve among university professors.

What has been my own experience? This past year, we had 110 students completing the commerce degree. It was one of the greatest delights of my life as an examiner that every one of those students wrote good English and could spell it. You can guess why it was such a delight to me. I have found classes in the first year in my own subject in University College, Dublin, where only 40 per cent. of the students could spell or write good English. That is not peculiar to our college because a professor in Trinity College—not one of the Senators—told me: "They use plural verbs with singular nouns, singular verbs with plural nouns and misspellings of all sorts and if you say: ‘Look at this; it is misspelt', they will say, ‘Ah, it is not English we are writing; it is economics or history or something else'." Surely it is gross inaccuracy and it stems, I believe, from this lack of a standard grammar or standard spelling of Irish.

Mr. Lynch

Has the Senator any idea of what percentage of Trinity College students go to Irish schools?

Dr. O'Donovan

The Minister may take it that the professor to whom I was talking was not discussing coloured students. I knew what he was talking about. I was extremely interested that our experiences had been the same. This is a desperate problem. I heard Senator Ó Siochfhradha use to-night the word "Gaoluinn" to describe Irish. When I was a boy going to school the word was "Gaedhilge". What is the standard spelling of it— something like "Gaeilge"? I think I am right. This is deplorable. I feel that kind of thing leads to gross inaccuracy of thought on the part of students.

Take Senator Ó Ciosáin's statement. I must say I thought his speech was very fair, but take this part of the speech: "We cannot make progress any faster than the circumstances of the time will allow us." Surely we are not making any progress. There is no use in pretending we are making progress. There is no use in the Minister for Defence saying he is being congratulated on something or other before it is well started. What I am very much afraid of in regard to the whole subject is that if the Department of Education does not move in relation to it now, it will find that the time has passed it by. The time is extremely short, in my opinion.

That is why the Minister's speech perturbed me. I should like to mention another thing in passing. When I entered University College, Dublin, the number of students doing Irish as an honours degree subject or doing Celtic Studies was quite substantial. A fair number still do Irish as an honours subject but practically no students now do Celtic Studies. That is true of the other colleges also and it becomes grave when you take the increase in the number of students. It is no use saying there are 40 students now where there were only 30 in 1925 when the numbers have increased so enormously.

The Minister suggested there would be a very great onus on the body which might be set up as a result of this motion. Considering that point, I looked at the motion again. It asks that the Government should institute an inquiry, first of all, into the various steps taken since 1922 for the restoration of the Irish language. We did not want the kind of an examination running into 1,700 appendices. This is not that kind of problem at all. The problem is so large and obvious that the motion might read, in paragraph (a): "The steps taken by the State since 1922." The examination will be of a very large problem, a very obvious problem. It is like the sun in the heavens.

It is not necessary to comment in detail on the Minister's speech. We all had the references to the "murder machine". I had them myself also. I left that at home, too. I should like to make three suggestions. I know so little about this matter, or I feel I know so little, that it is with extreme diffidence that I make these suggestions. In the first case, I am told there is a grave need that teachers should receive training in how to teach languages. That my be done already, but if it is done, people who, I think, are competent to judge feel that it is not being done adequately.

The second point I think the Minister has met very fairly—the question as to whether there should or should not be oral examinations. I think the Minister said the Department was examining that point. The third point I had written down is that an effort should be made to put together some literary textbooks which would be of interest to advanced students. I have seen books, which I had read myself, on the University calendars presumably for want of better, which I can only say, from a literary viewpoint, were deplorable. I will give the names of a few of them to the Minister, if he wishes to have them. I realise that, say, in advanced mathematics or subjects of that sort, there might be a financial difficulty, but I do not think the Department of Education can be genuine when they say there are financial difficulties about preparing some high-standard literary textbooks.

I would express one final hope. The suggestion that the inquiry is too wide is not a fair interpretation of the requirements of the motion. It is not intended that the inquiry should be too wide. It is intended it should be restricted to the subject of the restoration by the State of the Irish language. I admit the Minister will be faced with grave difficulty when it comes to the selection of the personnel of this investigating body.

I hope that when the body, whoever they may be, come to report they will not put at the end of their report a paragraph of the kind put at the end of the last important report on education: "Though we have all signed this report, we are not necessarily to be taken as in agreement with all or any of the recommendations in it." That makes a complete "cod" of any commission of investigation and it is farcical and deplorable that such a statement should occur in the final paragraph of the report of a responsible body. Men should sign over their own names what they think and they should not engage in that kind of withdrawal of responsibility unless they think or unless they intend to express the belief that they have been given an impossible task by the Minister concerned. I do not profess to judge that at all but I think the Minister, since he has been good enough to say that he would accept the motion or something like it, has an extremely difficult task. I would appeal to him to get a change of mind in the Department of Education. If he does not get a change of mind in the Department, as I said, the Department will find people like Senator Sheehy Skeffington and myself trying to maintain the teaching of Irish as a subject in this country, if we live so long.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I am very disappointed with this debate. I have sat here for five hours and have listened very attentively to every speaker. I am disappointed both with those who made the case for the motion and disappointed at the failure of those in opposition to put their cards on the table in a straight and direct manner and give us what is really in their minds. In fact this debate has been remarkable for the total collapse of any opposition to the revival of the Irish language.

For a few moments I could not make up my mind whether Senator O'Donovan was for the motion or against it, whether he was seconding it or axing it. It was so totally different from the speech of the mover, Senator Baxter, that I found it difficult to reconcile his name as seconder with the statements which he made, particularly his sneers at the Minister for wrapping up the question in "phrases from Israel to South Africa".

One of the reasons why I welcome one part of this motion—and that is the part that deals with the future: "what other or further steps or changes of methods may be desirable"—is that I think that any inquiry such as is suggested in the motion should do something that has, to my knowledge anyhow, not been done here up to now and should make the result of that effort available to the people so that they will know exactly what the difficulties are, how they have been surmounted in other lands and why those of us who believe in the possibility of reviving the language are confirmed in that belief by the experience of other countries.

I am very glad that references were made to the experience in other countries and I do not agree at all that there is no parallel with our case. The Minister referred to Wales and I would like to know why, after 35 years' effort here, we have not even reached the position which obtains in Wales.

Professor Hayes

That question is easy to answer but I suppose it cannot be answered now.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

The Senator might not have the same answer as I have.

Professor Hayes

It is an easy question to answer.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I find that in parts of the north and west of Wales over 80 per cent. of the people speak Welsh.

Professor Hayes

In the urban areas.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Even in the industrial areas of the south the percentage is pretty high. In the whole country of Wales, in spite of the English connection, in spite of the fact that they have not got control of their administration, 35 per cent. of the people are bilingual. I have been in Wales many times. I have attended Welsh study courses; I have gone there for holidays and I have been particularly interested to find out why it is that from the moment I get on the mailboat at Dún Laoghaire until I land at Holyhead I find Welshmen in British employment speaking their own language, delighted to be able to do it and delighted to be able to criticise the passengers in a language which the passengers do not know and getting a great kick out of it.

I have found from my study of the position in Wales that one of the principal reasons for the retention of the national language by the people there in spite of the handicaps is the close tie-up between religion and the language. It is a living language in many of the churches of Wales. It is a living language in at least one political party in Wales which holds its annual conference in the same way in which U.N.O. or the Council of Europe hold their sessions with interpreters to translate for the benefit of the people who do not speak Welsh. Everyone to whom I spoke assured me that the chief reason for that was the fact that in the churches Welsh is given the place of honour, is used by the clergymen and is made part and parcel of the spiritual life of the people of Wales.

There is a very interesting parallel in Israel to which the Minister made reference, in regard to the revival of Hebrew. I think Israel is the greatest parallel of all to our case and well worth our study. Hebrew was almost a lost language except for scholars, rabbis and those who attended services in synagogues scattered all over the world; yet in ten years, since the establishment of the political state of Israel, Hebrew has become the spoken language of over 1,000,000 people. It is the language of Parliament, the language of the newspapers, the language of the banking system and the language of industry and commerce. They are only ten years in political existence and yet they have learned Hebrew—by whatever means they have done it I do not know—and we have been 35 years tinkering with the business and we have not got so far or anywhere near it. It did not make them illiterate or hamper trade. As everybody knows, their country is one of the most educated and progressive States of the post-war world and is vying with long established industrial and commercial States for trade in all continents.

I was interested to hear Senator Dr. O'Donovan referring to the Minister for Defence and I recall the efforts made by a certain newspaper to ridicule the idea that Irish could be used in the Army. There were so many textbooks and so many technical terms, but it strikes me, while we are on the subject of Israel, that our Army authorities and the Minister for Defence can take encouragement from the fact that the Israeli forces who spoke Hebrew, who were recruited and who were forced to use textbooks written with new technical terms in Hebrew, did not do such a bad job at all when it came to military action a couple of years ago.

Again, the analogy with Wales exists. Hebrew, in the minds of the Jews, is a holy language and it was because Hebrew was linked with religion also that it was preserved and that it was possible to make the progress which they have made—that, and the pride of race which is characteristic of the Jewish people who have come together after their great dispersal. They have done this in ten years against tremendous handicaps, not the least of which is something which we have not got to contend with —the multitude of different tongues which came together from all over Europe. Yet they were able to do it. I want to know how they were able to make that progress. Is there a lesson in it for us? Can we gain experience or can we find the solution to our problems in the amazing, almost miraculous, revival of their language?

I was glad to hear the Minister refer to another country which offers a parallel, that is, South Sleswig, where again the revival of the Danish language since the end of World War II has been remarkable because, as the Minister told us, South Sleswig was annexed to Germany in 1864, was German speaking and only since the end of World War II have they introduced these schools in which Danish is being revived.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I do not like to hold up the Senator, because I know he has waited a long time to speak, but I feel the fact that the Minister was allowed wider scope should not encourage Senators to go so far outside the terms of the motion.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I am trying to show that I approve of the idea of setting up either a committee or a commission to see "what other or further steps or changes of methods may be desirable", and I am trying to show that the committee or commission could do good work in investigating the progress made in these countries which I have mentioned and that that is one of the things it should do. There are language problems in other countries and they might be attended to.

There is one question which I think is relevant to this inquiry or commission. We had mention here by one Senator of the effect of the language, or as he called it, compulsory Irish, on Partition. I am worried from another angle. I believe the inquiry, commission or committee, or whatever it may be, should cover the position in the Six Counties also. I was appalled to read, according to figures issued last year by the Six County Ministry of Education, that only 9.3 of the primary school children in 1,601 schools in the Six Counties got the opportunity of learning Irish. With only 150 schools returned as teaching Irish—and this is a sad and remarkable fact—there must be some 500 Catholic schools alone which do not teach the language. In the intermediate schools in the Six Counties Irish was taught in seven out of 28 and in the grammar schools, 32 out of 81.

I am interested in the Irish language revival not alone here in the Twenty-Six Counties but across the Border, in that area which one day will return to the fold of Ireland, and I should like to know is there any way in which we could help, any action we could take. I think this inquiry should also do something to elucidate the position and to find out what the progress is and what the handicaps are, and if there is any way we can help. As I have said, two of the cases I have quoted are linked with religion and the third one linked with pride of race.

I return to the theory I have advanced on every opportunity, and I also mentioned it when I was speaking on the Appropriation Bill here, that is, that I believe we are approaching this from the wrong angle. I am convinced that until such time as the children in schools—national, secondary and university—are given a grounding in the history of Ireland and given a grounding in citizenship and civics through a knowledge of the Constitution of Ireland under which they live, they will not have the pride in the Irish language which would foster the affection for it of which some of the Senators spoke here to-night.

There is undoubtedly cause for belief that many of the children learn Irish as an automatic or as a routine thing. There is cause for belief that when they leave school they do not use it. I believe that the reason they do not use it is that, while they are taught to speak Irish and while the schools are doing a tremendous job in that respect, they are not taught that they have a country, or the reason why they should have the language, or taught that it is the best bulwark against the inroads of foreign culture. They leave school without any real knowledge of the history of this country. Until they get that, I think it is futile to be talking about why they lose the language after leaving school.

I was amazed to find that that lack of pride of race to which I have often referred in public is now even being confirmed by clergymen in England, who say that many of our people who emigrate to that country have even lost pride in their religion. I insist that whatever inquiry is set up must start by turning its attention to the reason why children do not enthuse over the language, why they have no real affection for it, and why they do not use it after school. Yet, in the last 35 years, tremendous progress has been made and nobody need attempt to deny the amazing strides that have been made in certain directions. We have now what we did not have in 1921—thousands of books, thousands of texts. We have grammars, standardised spelling and we will soon have standardised grammar. We have reporters on newspapers capable of taking down verbatim reports of speeches in Irish. We have most of the technical aids that are required for the propagation of the language.

Why, with the inspiration of all that, has Irish not made the progress and consolidated itself, as other languages have, in Israel, in South Sleswig, in Wales and, as the Minister said, in South Africa? I think we are entitled to know and find out, despite the tremendous progress which is largely due to the efforts made in the schools undoubtedly, what is the reason for the fact that there is little improvement in the attitude of the newspapers, the Churches, business, the entertainment industry, sporting and social organisations? What is the reason that there were almost as many papers published in Irish in the days of the Black and Tans as there are to-day? What is the reason that only about as much space is given in the newspapers now to Irish—and they get a subsidy for it—as was given in the days of the War of Independence? Why is it one very seldom sees an advertisement in Irish? One or two firms have done it, but, on the whole, the advertisement business is completely in English. I could go on asking questions like that for a long time, but I should like to ensure that the Taoiseach and others will have an opportunity of speaking, so I will curtail what I had intended to say.

I agree with Senator Baxter, and with the other speakers, who said we must be proud of our past. We must have respect and regard for our traditions. We must not be ashamed to proclaim openly at all times that we are Irish, that we believe that part of our heritage is this language and that we are prepared to do all that lies within us to ensure that some day it will be the spoken language of the people. I am sorry to find that Senator Sheehy Skeffington and Senator McGuire do not seem to have any faith in it, but it will come, and it can come in 25 years in this country, as it came in ten years in Israel, if we make up our minds that it can be done and that it must be done.

There was one reference by Senator McGuire to which I object very strongly. He sneered at the dedicated minority, as he called us. We are no minority. We are dedicated, undoubtedly, but we are no minority. We are the people who made it possible for this country to get out of the control of a foreign Government and we are the people, those who believe in the Irish language, whose policy was ratified not alone by the first Dáil, but by the people in every general election since, and also by the people who enacted the 1937 Constitution, under which we live. We have no reason to be ashamed, or to be afraid, and I personally would like to proclaim my faith that, though I am disappointed the language has not consolidated itself in the way I had expected 25 years ago, we can still revive it. I personally, and I speak only for myself on this, have no horror at the word "compulsion", and have no objection whatever if it is proved to be feasible to use the methods used formerly in the schools to inflict the English language on us.

I have no hesitation in saying that I hope whatever steps are necessary to revive the language will be taken. I hope the inquiry suggested in this motion will devote itself not to the various steps taken since 1922, which we know, nor to the measure of success which has been achieved, which we also know, but to what is best now for us to do to ensure that the Irish language will some day be the language used in this chamber and in all public and political councils in this country.

Mr. O'Quigley

In addressing myself to this motion, I think my approach will be, in order to keep myself within the terms of the motion, to survey what the present position is and to inquire into whether or not that position discloses a need for an inquiry along the lines indicated in the motion. The first matter I should like to deal with, and on which I must take a strong stand, is the declaration by Senators McGuire and Sheehy Skeffington that it is undemocratic to persist in the efforts which have been made, and which most members of this House accept ought to be made, to revive the language.

The Minister for Education has referred to the Ministers and Secretaries Act of 1956, and there he finds statutory recognition that the restoration of the Irish language is a national aim. I think that the Minister might even go further and look at the 1937 Constition where he will find a more explicit statement to the effect that the Irish language, as the national language, is the first official language. I think, on that, the Minister will find a more firm legal basis for declaring the restoration must be the national aim. Apart altogether from legal documentation, I would assert, and I think I cannot be contradicted, that it would be most undemocratic of this generation to decide for all future generations that we would not have an Irish language in this country. That would be the height of undemocratic behaviour, that this generation should decide for all time that the Irish language was to die.

It must be accepted that we are merely in this generation, as previous generations have been, trustees of the national heritage which we must pass on in the best state of preservation, or if we can, improve it, and that we ought to do nothing and cannot be allowed to do anything which would damage that heritage. That must be the answer to the critics of the restoration programme. Neither do I agree with what Senator Sheehy Skeffington said that we must have a more limited aim than that of making the language the vernacular of the people. It would be deplorable and psychologically unsound, if we were to have that limited aim. If that were the aim, we would be merely teaching our children a language for the purpose of acquiring a language, without all those other incentives about which Senator Ó Maoláin and others have spoken, which are so necessary an ingredient, if the language is to be made the spoken language of the people.

We have roved fairly far afield, from Israel to Africa, but I think it would be better—not indeed that I say we ought not to look abroad—to concentrate our efforts on what has been going on and try to see whether what has been done was in the best interests of the restoration of the language. I have discussed it with a number of people and I have examined the workings of my own mind to find out the evolution of my own attitude towards the language and what I regard as the main deficiency in the restoration programme. From my own experience, I am convinced that the psychological basis upon which a language must be revived was never taken into consideration by those who formulated the policy for the restoration of the language.

I can speak only for myself—and I do not want to intrude my own personality into the matter—but it is significant that my real interest in the Irish language developed after I left school, when I was freed from the bonds of examinations. In that context, I should say I never had any difficulty in doing examinations. I do not want to go into that matter, but the House can take it that Irish was a subject which I liked and in which I got high marks. It is significant—and I found it to be the case with other people of my generation—that once we left school, we began to sit back and find a new appreciation of and delight in Irish which we did not have while at school.

I can explain the reason for that. I went to a national school in the country, a mixed school. At first, it was a three teacher school; it was a two teacher school when I left it. I then went to a secondary boarding school and did the last four years of my secondary course in a day school in the town of Castlebar, run by the De La Salle Brothers. I remember that while at school, my hope in life was to get a position. I knew I could not get a position unless I was good at Irish, but I was aware that there were other people in a much better position to get marks for Irish at examinations because they happened to have greater facilities for learning Irish or happened to be born in the Gaeltacht.

I knew in my own family—of which there were ten—that there was a position where people going for the preparatory scholarship for primary school teachers were suffering from the handicap of not being born in the Gaeltacht. If they happened to have been born there, or if the father and mother happened to reside there, we would have been in a better position to get State examinations because a certain percentage of the places in the colleges were reserved for people born in the Gaeltacht, or who got 85 per cent. in oral Irish. It may be said there is no compulsion in relation to Irish, but all that kind of disadvantage, which the majority of the people learning Irish were up against going to school, created a bias against Irish. I believe it is what Senator Hayes called the economic aspect that has certainly retarded the development of that affection and love of language which is so necessary for its growth.

That was only a minor thing because not everybody was doing State examinations. Apart from that, by reason of the financial arrangements operated by the Department, there was the position whereby secondary schools insisted on teaching children through the medium of Irish. Here the Department of Education must take responsibility for any blame attributable to it arising out of the regulations. I and my colleagues had no difficulty whatever in assimilating instruction through the medium of Irish; but I do say that when it came to dealing with history, geography, Latin and subjects of that kind, we received no assistance whatever from the Department of Education.

In the secondary schools course for geography, there was only one set of text books which were a translation by Michael Breathnach of Eleanor Butler's Geography. Those who wanted to get higher marks or honours in geography had to read an English production, Dudley Stamp's geography, and translate it from English into Irish. It is a very good achievement that students should be able to reproduce at examinations a geography they learned in Irish, but it is imposing too much of a burden on them to expect that, in addition to acquiring a knowledge of geography and history, they should also have to translate that knowledge into Irish.

The same applied to Latin. At that time, there were no Latin textbooks in Irish and no Latin grammar. At present, I understand, Bradley's grammar has been translated and I have seen it in the Government Publications Sales Office. However, I am informed by Latin teachers that it is disastrous from the point of view of students learning Latin to take a book translated from English into Irish and to try to translate Irish sentences into Latin. It is most unsound from the point of view of teaching Latin. I could go through different subjects and show that, as far as the people of my generation were concerned, in secondary schools, we received no assistance whatever from the Department of Education and the Department of Education must take the blame for that.

Is it any wonder then that while we were at school, we had a feeling—I will not say of resentment—but certainly we had a grudge against the Irish language? I believe that if the revival of Irish is to succeed we must create an aura about the language to give that appeal which will have a hold upon the affections of those who read it long after they leave school, in the same way as people learning history get a love of their nation and develop that sense of patriotism which derives from the learning of history. In the teaching of Irish, we must create a somewhat similar aura which will flow over into after-life and which will enable people to continue their knowledge of Irish, not because it holds anything for them in the material sense, but because it is a good thing in itself in the same way as patriotism is a right and proper motive.

At no time in the primary and secondary school was any period during the whole of our career in school devoted to giving Irish a build-up and to giving students the reasons why they should love their own language. I have many times seen statements by politicians, by high ranking ecclesiastics and by workers in the Gaelic movement telling people they should love the language. With all due respect to the people who made those statements, I think they are nonsensical. There is no more effect in telling people they should love a language than there was in the old system of matchmaking— telling someone he should love a particular woman. Unless the woman had an appeal for the man, he never would love her. Unless the language is invested with particular appeal for the people admonished to love it, they will not love it. If they do not love it, they will discard it as soon as they have got all they want out of it.

It will not be denied that some of the best brains in the country find their way into the public services, the Civil Service and the local government services. In all of these services, a prerequisite for further appointment is that they should know Irish. At the time they succeed in their examination, they have great proficiency in the language. Competition is so keen that they must be highly proficient; but the unfortunate thing is that once they have got what they want out of the language, it is discarded. It has no other use for them. It has no further use for them than has the sardine tin for the housewife. Once she has got the sardine, she puts the tin in the garbage receptacle. There is no use saying that we must make a start in the public services. The public services cannot use the Irish language, unless the public with whom they are communicating and serving use the Irish language and want them to use it. Civil servants writing in Irish or local authority employees writing in Irish to people in regard to social benefits and benefits under the Health Act would be regarded as purely obstructing people in obtaining what they are entitled to get.

In that connection it is pointless to argue that the public servants must lead. I do not think that is the position. I hope this inquiry will be set up. If it is, I certainly will express my views and make my suggestions to them. That is probably the better place to do it than take up the time of this House with my own views.

I want to make a few further comments. I think, apart from that aspect of the Department of Education's failure in relation to Irish in the primary and secondary schools, I must level a further charge against them. I do not do this in any spirit of animosity. I do it for the purpose of showing the direction in which we might have been travelling with great benefit to the restoration programme. It will be readily conceded that the restoration of the language is not an easy matter. It is 35 or 36 years since this State was founded and I think it is remarkable that this is the first time we have really decided to examine our conscience and see what we have been doing about the restoration of the language.

We have an Institute for Advanced Studies which is a very fine and praiseworthy body, I have no doubt, but I would think it would be a far better day's work for this country if we had an institute for research into the restoration of the Irish language and the promotion of its use. If we had an institute concerning itself with examining the psychological aspect of the revival, seeing every ten years, as students pass through the schools, what progress they were making and adopting new methods where old methods have proved unsuccessful, it would be better. If we had an institute devising and advising in regard to the promotion and use of Irish, we would have been far better served, I submit, and this nation would be far better served than by an Institute of Advanced Studies.

The time has long since arrived when we should have some body of experts actively engaged in seeing what could be done in the schools by way of tests, teaching methods, and by inquiring into the circumstances and the reasons why pupils who have left school are not using the language. If we had such a body, we would be making progress year by year in the restoration of the language.

It is quite a common cause of complaint by people who are trying to advance the cause of the language to say that the parents do not give encouragement. Parents are in this modern age very busy about many matters and parents get, in my view, no guidance as to how they might encourage their children in the use of Irish. I believe that if parents were given some assistance in developing within the home a love for Irish, at least some parents would use these methods.

It is all very well to blame the parents, but they are not experts in child psychology; neither are they experts in the revival of a language. It is a new problem for them and they have received no guidance. There is no publication of any kind on the matter. I have never heard a talk on Radio Éireann or seen an article in the newspapers as to the different ways in which parents might assiduously assist in the revival of the language in the case of their own children. There has been a very grave lack in that respect. I think that in regard to the future the commission might consider some such body as would devote all its time to studying methods, revising them and adapting old methods where they have not proved quite so successful.

There is another matter and that is the insistence upon too high a standard, both in oral and written Irish. It would be far better from the point of view of the restoration of the language if the people on Radio Éireann announcing the news were to use the type of Irish that is spoken by the average Dublin child—not Gaeltacht Irish but revival Irish. By introducing revival Irish to the people and by saying: "This is the new style of speaking; this is the progress we have made", it would give great encouragement to people who know some Irish but who are not as fluent or have not got the blas they feel they ought to have.

I have no doubt in my mind that, when I come in contact with a native speaker, whether in the Gaeltacht or in the City of Dublin, I am most abashed about speaking because I feel I have not got the proper blas or that I may make grammatical mistakes. If, on the other hand, it were officially recognised that revival Irish was the Irish of to-day, the Irish of 1958, and was heard on Radio Éireann, I would have no hesitation about speaking it. It has been a fundamental mistake to insist upon so high a standard. There are people who have given up the effort to learn Irish on that account. That is a fundamental mistake and one upon which there should be a revision of policy.

There is another matter which, in my view, has seriously affected and will continue seriously to affect the restoration movement. I do not know on what authority Litriú Nua na Gaeilge has been introduced. I know that it has been adopted here by the translation staff upon the direction of the Taoiseach and I am aware that it is now compulsory for some State examinations that Irish shall be spelled in the new Litriú. I think that is antagonising people who know how to spell in the old way, but, worse than that, all those people who have grown up and learned Irish from 1922 to 1945 or 1947, when this nua litriú came in, who knew the Irish as spelled in the old way, are debarred from reading Irish now printed in the Litriú Nua.

I remember my first acquaintanceship with the Litriú Nua when I came across the words "bainisteoir cunta". That meant nothing to me. I do not happen to speak, and I do not propose to speak, the Munster dialect because I come from Connacht and I was taught the Connacht dialect. My pronunciation for the Irish word for assistant is cogantóir and "cunta" means nothing to me. The adoption of this Nua Litriú, with the phonetics taken largely from the Munster dialect, means that as far as speakers from the Connacht and Ulster areas are concerned, they cannot understand what is being written in the Litriú Nua. I believe that such a drastic operation upon a patient whose health was not so good should not have been undertaken, and I believe it has had a rather bad effect and has dampened the interest of people in reading the Irish that may be in the papers when that new spelling is employed.

The operation is proceeding. Whether it is a good thing now to revive the patient and get rid of this Nua Litriú, I do not know. I have discussed this with teachers and some of them argue that it is much easier to teach children through this Nua Litriú. I think the problem might have been dealt with in an entirely different way, by not insisting on too high a standard in spelling in State examinations. When I was at school, if I had spelled the word "cunta" in the Leaving Certificate, I have no doubt a quarter of a mark would have been deducted. Now, that spelling is perfectly right. We might have evolved a system of spelling that would be of gradual growth rather than have this new system forced on us suddenly.

Last night, the Taoiseach, speaking on the Agricultural Institute Bill, said that everybody would recognise that "An Foras Talúntais" had something to do with "talamh". That is so, but many words in the Nua Litriú have no relation whatever, in the way they are spelled, to words that I know and to the way I pronounce them. That applies to all those who use the dialects of Ulster and Connacht.

The Minister for Education, in dealing with the position in the primary schools, certainly painted a picture which would delight the hearts of all primary teachers. If the situation were as he described it, I have no doubt the national teachers would be at a loss for something to complain about, with the exception of their salaries. My understanding of the position has always been that the test for efficiency in the primary schools has been the efficiency of the teacher, or at any rate the proficiency of the pupils in oral Irish and not in written Irish. We must not forget that a great deal of the goodwill of the primary teachers was alienated by insistence on a standard of efficiency in Irish which, in many cases, due to the economic and social circumstances of the pupils was unattainable.

The House must not forget that at one time the salaries of teachers in the primary schools were directly related to the competence of the pupils in oral Irish and if the pupils happened to be from a backward area, the salary of the teacher dropped. It may happen, as teachers will tell you it happens, that you have a good class one year, and you have a bad class in another year, but if the class is not good at Irish for one reason or another, the teacher's salary dropped.

When people talk about compulsion, I think it is things like that they have in mind. That was a deplorable thing while it lasted. It was got rid of some years back, but the fact has not blotted out the antipathy that people have had towards the Department of Education. Certainly I would be glad to think, not alone for the benefit of the Irish language, but for education in general, that things were as the Minister had painted them. However, I leave that to the I.N.T.O.: they are in a better position to deal with it.

There is a great deal I might say, but I do not wish to say anything more, except on the constitution of the inquiry. I think it is a fatal mistake to think that an inquiry, if held in Dublin, will get at the real information and arrive at the truth of the matter as we want it to be arrived at. I do not think that Dublin is Ireland, or that what goes on in Dublin is typical of what goes on in the minds of the people of the whole country. My suggestion would be—and I would ask the Minister to give it serious consideration— not to have one single commission tackling the whole problem which is regarded on all sides as being a very big problem. I suggest that an important aspect of an inquiry of this kind is to discover the attitude of the people towards the revival of Irish, why it has not succeeded and what they think might be done. I believe the best way of doing that is not by having a commission sitting in Dublin, but by having a number of committees—perhaps three—in different sections of the country, which would go on circuit to different places for the purpose of taking evidence. That would be a much more effective way of getting at the truth and getting at the facts we all want to get. If we are to make progress in the future, we must know what has gone on in the past and what is in the minds of the people at present.

There are various other matters which commissions sitting in Dublin contiguous to the various Government Departments might engage in. I think it is possible to sectionalise the work of an inquiry of this magnitude and I would suggest it should be done along those lines. I take it that such an inquiry will be instituted and I would ask the Minister to give serious consideration to the suggestions I have made as to the manner in which the inquiry might be conducted.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

Although I did object to Senator Sheehy Skeffington departing from the terms of the motion, the motion does restrict discussion. Paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of the motion are three simple statements which do not allow of much discussion. I intend to be very brief. Senator Baxter, in proposing the motion, appealed to me greatly in the sentiments he expressed but I was very disappointed when his seconder, a high educationist, spoke in the manner in which he did.

The majority of the people so far as their opinion can be assessed by their votes at elections to both central and local government, are in favour of the restoration of the Irish language. It is difficult for us to discuss, as we are asked to do in a simple statement in the motion, the progress that has been achieved. The motion suggests that that be defined by inquiry. We can look into our own hearts and try to discover, as far as we are concerned individually, why we have failed to induce others to speak the language and to equip ourselves to speak the language in our daily lives.

Senator Hayes referred to the birth of the Gaelic League in 1893. I was born that year. In the first decade of this century I attended a national school. We were educated there under the "murder machine" but there were teachers then who could compare very favourably with any teachers to-day. I matriculated to the National University from that national school without attending any secondary school. At that time we did junior and middle intermediate. We did middle honours in the secondary education of the time. For that examination we took Irish and French and we did Latin in the matriculation examination. They were in addition to the ordinary subjects. What makes me wonder now is why we have not done better as a nation in the matter of the restoration of the language.

From that time there were years of strife, a struggle for national independence, which directed our activities into other fields. At one period, when both Senator Hayes and I were in the same camp inside barbed wire, I learned a considerable amount of Irish from Senator Hayes. There was then a spirit of resurgence in the country in regard to national liberty and the Irish language. I am afraid that I must agree with the Senator who said that the differences which occurred in regard to the Treaty and the Civil War in 1922 created an atmosphere of disillusionment and schism as far as the Irish language and national progress were concerned. To some extent, we have ourselves to blame, apart from Departments of Education or legislation, for not having made greater progress in the restoration of the language.

I was interested when Senator O'Quigley rose to speak. I was hoping that he, as a member of the younger generation, would give us some slant on the approach of the younger generation towards the Irish language. He got rather mixed up in his arguments and I could not follow his line of approach. According to him everything seemed to be wrong. He learned the Irish language because one of the things it meant to him was passing examinations. He decried the Civil Service. A great number of the best brains in the country enter the Civil Service. He decried them because they had no further interest in the Irish language once they obtained a position in the Civil Service. He followed that by saying that there was no good in civil servants speaking Irish or writing letters in Irish to people who could not understand them.

I have already referred to the seconder of the motion, who happens to bear the same name as mine. I think his predecessors came from the same part of the country as mine, but I must express disappointment at the sentiments he uttered and his references to illiteracy and to the fact that students enter the university who cannot write grammatically. In the course of his remarks here, he mentioned a few times some word that was spelled "wrong". If my grammar is correct, he should have referred to words being spelled "wrongly". He can be illiterate and ungrammatical in speeches here. I suppose we all are, to some extent, but I do not understand why the Senator should emphasise the fact that students going to the university cannot write English or Irish. There may be certain students who, to his mind, are not satisfactorily educated in both these languages but I feel it is an exaggeration for him, as a public representative, speaking in one of the Houses of the Oireachtas, to emphasise that students entering the university cannot write English or Irish intelligently. It is a wrong attitude for an educationist or one who holds a position in a university in this country.

I should like to support what Senator Ó Maoláin has said about the restoration of the language. I feel that the three basic influences on the youth in this country are the school, the home and the church. The schools are helping the restoration of the Irish language. Everybody will admit that. Some may criticise to some extent the details of the approach.

The homes of the country are generally favourable to the Irish language. Some of them are the homes of people for whom I would say Senator Sheehy Skeffington speaks when he mentioned to-night that we have tried to do too much. The trouble is that too many tried to do nothing. A representative such as Senator Sheehy Skeffington must, unfortunately, be one of the too many who never tried to do anything. However, homes generally are favourable to the Irish language.

Now I come to the Church. I can say "Church" in the singular, because the overwhelming majority of the people in the country belong to one Church. The other Churches, for the smaller section of the community, have repeatedly demonstrated their interest in the Irish language—in services on St. Patrick's Day, even. I feel that the predominant Church of the country has not done sufficient to help in the restoration of the Irish language. If we had, as Senator Ó Maoláin said, school, home and Church influence, there would be much quicker progress, having the three together, in the restoration of the language and in its practical everyday use as the spoken medium.

I have come to the conclusion that we cannot have a single language vehicle of communication amongst one another. We shall have to have the use of the two languages. The universities are the strongest argument in relation to our being a bilingual nation. There are schools in which all the subjects—science, mathematics, as well as other languages—are taught through the medium of Irish. However, when we come to the universities themselves, straight away all subjects are not taught through the medium of Irish. When going through the professional examination, I often thought myself how difficult it would be to have textbooks in anatomy, physiology and bio-chemistry. Nevertheless, it could be done because many of the terms used in anatomy are basically Latin. I will mention one of them which was never translated into English and which need never be translated into Irish—Levator labii superioris aquilae nasii—which is a long definition of a single muscle. Translated, it means: Lifter of the upper lip and the wing of the nose. The Latin would be just as intelligible in an Irish textbook as it would be in the English one where it is used. Many Greek and Latin derivatives are used in these technical words. With the aid of further money, we could have textbooks in these very scientific subjects in Irish. However, even without them, the universities could conduct their education through the medium of Irish to a far greater extent than is being done at present. I presume we cannot get our higher centres of education to come to that position without a greater appreciation of the language amongst the ordinary members of the Irish community. I do not know why we have not been more successful. I feel ashamed that we have not.

I can understand the Irish language and can speak it, but it is another matter when it comes to speaking it fluently. Whether or not I speak fluently in English, I must admit that I can say what I wish to say better in one language than in the other. The fact, generally, that we have not made greater progress creates the feeling that we have not done what it would do us credit as a nation to have done. We seem to think we can lay down our lives in a fight for freedom or do lots of things for freedom, but we are not taking this very vital action towards our freedom, that is, the resuscitation and maintenance of our native language.

We have lost some of the patriotic spirit which helped us to do the things we did in other days. Perhaps the present generation are handicapped to some extent by facts that this inquiry may bring to light. There are very many boys and girls in every portion of the country now with a competent knowledge of Irish. When I say "competent", I mean that they can communicate with and speak to each other and conduct their meetings and discussions in Irish. That is especially so if they have sufficient practice. Personally, I could speak more fluent Irish if I had a greater opportunity of practising it.

It very often happens, even in this House, for example that a person who speaks in Irish must then repeat his remarks in English for the benefit of those persons present who do not understand Irish. It is a great pity that young people who know the language cannot conduct their meetings and discussions completely in the Irish language, without having to say again in English what they have said in Irish. Unfortunately, that has often to be done to convenience those who do not understand the language and it is frequently the cause of delay.

I regret we have not made greater progress. I do not admit the statement that we have not made progress and the attempts to decry all the efforts made up to the present. We have not made the progress which I personally should like to see, but, undoubtedly, we have made a certain amount of progress. I hope our nation will yet succeed in restoring the Irish language, at least to the point at which we can express ourselves satisfactorily and conduct our business in the Irish language, as well as being able to speak a second language.

Senator L'Estrange rose.

An Cathaoirleach

It is now ten o'clock. Perhaps the Seanad might give some indication of its intention with regard to the continuance of the debate?

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I was hoping we might get agreement to sit late in order to finish the motion. That would be more desirable than to carry it over into the next session.

Professor Hayes

Can we finish before 11 o'clock? Who else desires to speak? Before we conclude, we should like an indication of the Government's view. I take it that Senator L'Estrange will not be long. At least, he promised to be brief.

Mr. Lynch

The Taoiseach will follow, if that is the case.

Professor Hayes

Then we shall easily finish before 11 o'clock and I am quite agreeable.

Mr. L'Estrange

I welcome this motion. I hope the Government will institute an inquiry into the various steps that have been taken since 1922 for the restoration of the Irish language. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' and ratepayers' money have been spent, since 1922, on the restoration of the language. There is a large volume of opinion that the money might as well have been thrown down the drain, that it was a complete waste of time. I do not agree with those people. At the same time, we have not had the success we should have, or been as successful as people anticipated in 1921.

Progress in business is often started with the men who take a fresh look at the whole intricate operation of their firm. We should do the same and not be content to muddle along as we have been during the past 30 years. The time has come when we should examine the whole position. We should try to find out why we have not been as successful as we should have been and why we have been a failure to a large extent. We should try to find out what has happened to the spirit of resurgence which Senator Seán Ó Donnabháin spoke about and what has happened to the love for the Irish language the people had 30 to 40 years ago. It will be admitted we had more people interested in the language at that time than we have now, despite the fact that the Minister for Education has stated here that Irish is known by more people now than it was 35 years ago. I doubt that statement.

One of the reasons why we have not been successful is that we have buried our heads in the sand and are not prepared to face up to the facts. There are many people who love the language, who state that it is dying and dying fast, that the Gaeltacht is dwindling, that it is getting smaller and smaller each year and that people are migrating from it as fast as they can. We were given certain figures here to-day. We were told that, according to the 1936 census, 23 per cent. of the people knew Irish; that according to the 1946 census, ten years afterwards, only 21 per cent. knew Irish; and that in 1956 the people were not asked to answer the question at all. Many people ask why the Department did that. Did they think that if they asked it they would get a smaller percentage—perhaps only 19 or 20 per cent?

We wonder what has happened to the love for the Irish language we had at one time, that national resurgence of which Senator Ó Donnabháin speaks. I remember that 20 years ago in my home town, in Mullingar, we had national teachers, secondary teachers, members of the G.A.A. and others interested in the Irish language. Irish classes were held twice or three times a week, when the halls they were held in were packed almost to capacity. There were feiseanna and Irish dances. There is nothing of that kind being held in any part of County Westmeath to-day. I wonder why. What has happened to those people?

We have been told here that classes are being held by the vocational education committees. I am a member of the Westmeath Vocational Education Committee. We held Irish classes, but we had to close them down in certain parishes. The chairman of our committee made the statement, and he was a man in favour of the Irish language, that the only people attending these classes were officers in the Army or officials of the county council about to do examinations and looking for promotion. That appeared in our local papers and I do not think it was contradicted.

It is agreed by all that many mistakes were made. I am inclined to think that one of the greatest mistakes of all was compulsory Irish. Although some people may say we have not got compulsory Irish, at the same time, we have. You can lead the Irish but it is very hard to drive them. When we had not this compulsion, there were more people anxious and eager to learn it. Senator Ó Maoláin asked certain questions—why, when so many papers were published in the days of the Black and Tans, we had not more published in Irish to-day and why there are no advertisements in the Irish language. He spoke about the Welsh people and said that they speak their language because of their love of it and their national heritage.

Unfortunately, we have to say that Irish has been made a racket by politicians from time to time—certain Parties promising that they, and they alone, had a plan to restore it. People believed them. As Senator O'Quigley said, we had people getting into good jobs because of alleged knowledge of Irish and when they got into those jobs, they never spoke Irish afterwards or bothered about it. Senator Hayes referred to that question. He did not think it was right policy, that because Dr. A knew a little more Irish than Dr. B, he should get a certain position.

People remember certain things. There is one thing I remember—I was only a boy at the time—it was about Bob Tisdall, who was attending Cambridge University and was a great hurdler. He was appealed to by the British to compete for the British team, but he said he would not, that he would compete for Ireland. He competed for Ireland in Los Angeles in 1936 and he beat the cream of the world and helped to put the country on the map. He had qualifications in forestry that very few people had in Europe and he applied for a job in this country. I claim he was a great Irishman, but he failed his Irish test and he did not get the job and he had to emigrate. A man who stood for this country and proved he was a great Irishman should have been fitted in and should have got a job in this country.

We all know about the guinea pigs, if you like to call them that, of the past 30 years, the young teachers and the young parents of to-day. I do not think they can be blamed on account of the number of mistakes made since 1922, if they are not as enthusiastic about the language as their fathers and mothers were. It is my firm conviction, in any case, that the parents should have their rights respected regarding the type of education their children get. After all, whatever Party is in power, the people are the bosses and those politicians should be their servants.

When this inquiry is held, at some date in the future, a plebiscite should be held and the parents' opinions should be obtained on at least three questions. First, they should be asked: "Do you wish to have Irish taught as a subject only?" I think nearly 100 per cent. of the people would definitely agree to that. They should also be asked the second question: "Do you wish to have all subjects taught through the medium of Irish?" It would be interesting to see the replies. Thirdly, they should be asked: "If not, state what subjects, if any, you would wish to have taught through Irish?" I think it will be agreed by all that the parents have had no say in the restoration of the language for the past 30 years. The fanatics have pushed the Government and the Government, in obedience to what it thought was a public demand. forced the teachers to teach Irish. The teachers got the results by using the cane; the teachers made the pupils learn Irish and the pupils hated it afterwards. The teachers saved themselves from dismissal and the Department said they were doing a good job.

The Minister gave certain figures here to-day as regards 37,000 pupils sitting for the primary examination, that 29,000 passed, that is, 78.1 per cent. We know anything can be done with figures. He did not tell us the number asked by their teachers to stay away. It is a well known fact, in the case of the primary examinations, boys are often told off to stay away, or they stay away themselves. It is well known throughout the whole country.

Many psychologists are convinced that children are being subjected to mental frustration as a result of the imposition on them of a language which is not the language of the home. In the early years, up to at least ten or 11 years of age, children should be taught through the language of the home. They should be taught Irish as a subject and all other subjects through the language that their parents know and understand because parents can help them with their homework which I claim is very important. It is the teacher's duty to teach in order to develop the mental faculties of the child and, above all, to make him a better citizen.

It has taken the people a long time to realise that "a chara", "mise le meas" and "a cháirde Gaeil" and "Now I shall address you in English" are not the stamps of a good Irishman. The restoration of the Irish language was the hope and the dream of the majority of the people of this country after 1922 when we got our freedom. Most of those people now admit that the efforts of those 30 years have not achieved the success they hoped would be achieved.

There are many people who will not admit defeat because the effort to restore the Irish language has been for them the goose that lays the golden egg. They do not wish to have that goose destroyed, lest they loose their prestige and influence. If the language revival is to be a success it must be lifted out of the realm of Party politics. When I was listening to the Taoiseach away back in 1932 when he told us in Mullingar that they had a plan for restoring the Irish language, I believed him.

The Taoiseach

If there is a reference to me I should like to see the quotation in that precise form.

Mr. L'Estrange

It has even been printed on the Taoiseach's own Party leaflets. We have his own six promises printed on these leaflets.

Tomas Ó Maoláin

I should like to know what this has to do with the motion.

Mr. L'Estrange

It has this much to do with it. People were frustrated because they were told by different political Parties they had a plan and when they found out they had no plan, the people lost the love they once had for the Irish language. Senator O Maoláin spoke about the programme of the Minister for Defence in relation to Irish in the Army. I should like to know are the Minister's motives sincere? Is it for the love of the Irish language that he is introducing this programme? Is it not a well-known fact that the only reason for it is to enable young Fianna Fáil officers to get promotion over the heads of good men who have been in the Army since 1922?

Tomás O Maoláin

I will not listen to any more of that.

Mr. Lynch

Dirty insinuations.

Mr. L'Estrange

It is that sort of thing that has the Irish language and the country where they are to-day.

Mr. Lynch

I was hoping that when we extended the debate the Seanad would have something objective to give us, not that kind of stuff.

An Cathaoirleach

It is understood that the Leas-Chathaoirleach will follow the Taoiseach to conclude.

The Taoiseach

We have been asked to give some indication of the Government's attitude on this motion. An inquiry similar to that suggested would have been instituted before this if we could see what sort of commission or committee should be set up whose recommendations or whose findings would have the effect of being understood and accepted by the people. The trouble is to set up such a committee. Senator Hayes or the mover of the motion—I am not sure which—suggested that the committee should be one which contained members who were known to desire sincerely the restoration of the language. If we are to pick such a team—and it is the only kind of team we can pick— will it have the effect of settling public opinion and getting the public to realise what are the facts? A great deal of the campaign has been due to a misunderstanding of the situation by people who have not taken the trouble to see exactly what has happened and what is happening.

Throughout this debate there has been the definite assumption that we have completely failed. Senator Hayes applauded some statement by another Senator who said that our position in a way is unique, that there are no other examples that you could take as being completely analogous. I should like to know, therefore, on what basis we can say we have completely disappointed. The restoration of a language like ours, that had receded so far as it had when this movement began, is an extremely difficult task. It requires on the part of the community an enthusiasm almost similar to the enthusiasm which obtained at the time when we struggled to get our freedom. If we could get anything like that I would have no hesitation in saying that I believed absolutely in the task of restoring this language to be for our people like what Danish is for the Danes or their native language is for any of the other small nations of Europe—that I believe that aim to be completely attainable.

We have been hampered in the movement to restore the language by the fact that the realisation of these difficulties came after certain efforts had been made. The people then began to despair and take up the attitude that has been taken by certain Senators here—that the task was impossible. How can we win a battle if a large number of those who are required to gain the victory have already despaired?

If you could weed them out and go on without them there might be some chance of success, but they are not merely not co-operating with us but are actually hampering those who, if they were a separate community, could succeed through their enthusiasm. The restoration of the language depends entirely upon the will of the people and not merely upon their desire. I would say the great majority of our people desire to restore the language, but we want more than desire to restore it. We want an intensive, continuous effort if we are to succeed.

Are we prepared to give that continuous effort? Do we love the language, do we believe in it sufficiently to make that effort? There was a time when I believed there was no doubt that our people were prepared to make the necessary effort and to continue that effort to success. One of the things about the restoration that is quite obvious is that you have to get people to speak the language to every other person who speaks it. Such use of the language among those who speak even a little of it helps towards victory. If you could get the people who know the language to put up a mark by which they could distinguish each other so that they could speak the language when they meet each other, you would not have this talk about not hearing people speak the language in the buses in Dublin or elsewhere.

There is quite a large number of people who are quite capable of using the language in ordinary conversation. To get up and make a speech in Irish is a much more difficult thing than to use it in ordinary conversation. Most of us know that even in the language we have been using continuously all our lives it is difficult to make a speech, to arrange our ideas and to get for the expression of those ideas the exact words we require to carry over our meaning or our intention.

There is a very large number of people in this country at the present time who know the language sufficiently to play a tremendous part in getting done what we are aiming at. We must either aim at the restoration of the language as a medium of ordinary communication or at keeping the language as a subject. It was Fintan Lalor long ago who pointed out that the flag that flies nearest the sky is the one most likely to get the people to rally round it.

If you teach Irish as a subject, like Latin or Greek, there may be a certain sentimentality about the language, but if you do your utmost to restore it as a spoken tongue you can at least hope that there will be a number of people so attached to it that they will become scholars in it, that they will be able to use it in a different way from that in which it would be used if it were taken only as a subject.

As regards compulsion, let us examine the basis of the steps that have been taken. It is this: the children, who will be the young people of the future, have a right to be given, when we can give it, the opportunity of knowing the language so that when they grow up they will be able to satisfy their love for their country in the speaking of their language. We have a duty to give it to them. There is good reason for suggesting that when children come into a school in the infant classes use should be made of the language. Were some of those who referred to this matter thinking of university classes? Why the suggestion about teaching children in infant classes through the medium of Irish? We know perfectly well that in that infant classes there is no such thing as trying to teach the children arithmetic and such subjects through Irish.

I was speaking recently to a very successful teacher of infant classes and asked her how she managed. I knew that she used Irish. "To tell you the truth," she said, "most of the day I spend trying to keep them from breaking their necks in the galleries." Of course a great deal of the time in the infant classes is occupied in taking care of the children. There is no such thing as teaching these young children subjects through Irish. Those who suggest such a thing are talking arrant nonsense. The Minister pointed out here to-night that the rule was intended to give to teachers who knew the language an opportunity of giving to infants a small, simple vocabulary, to ask them in Irish to stand up, to open the door, to shut the door, to sit down, to open a book if they had a book. These simple things can be taught to the children within the school time.

It makes things easier if the parents in the homes know the language and encourage the children. One of our ideas was that it would take a generation or two to bring about the restoration, that the first generation would know some Irish and that when their children came back to their homes the work in the schools could be supplemented and encouraged, that the children could be helped by their parents with the knowledge the parents themselves had gained. It is only those who think in terms of miracles who believe we should have the nation Irish-speaking to-day.

I heard Senator Ó Maoláin talk about things being done in ten years. Before I would believe in that idea I should like to see it done at closer quarters. I know of conditions in Palestine. There it was a necessity; they wanted some means of expression. If you are in an Irish-speaking district and you are hungry you will not be long before you learn how to say such things as "arán", "im", "té". In the same way they were quick to learn in Palestine. However, I am not so sure the situation there has been clearly given. These were special circumstances, not the same circumstances as exist here.

Ours must, of necessity, be a long-term struggle. One of our troubles in the past was that there were so many forces against us that to halt, even, was dangerous. One of the troubles about a commission like that suggested here is that people may halt and wait for what the commission tells them. In 1952, I wrote from Utrecht a letter to the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis in which I said the time had come when we would have to face an examination of the present position. I do not believe in going back asking questions about what has been done except in so far as it is immediately relevant to the steps that must be taken in the future.

In the beginning we did throw a terrible burden on the teachers who did not know Irish. They had to make it up, and what was the result? Many of them were middle aged, or over the middle age, and they disliked becoming students again, in that sense. They had to learn the language, and one of the evils, in my opinion, which followed was that they had to teach from a book. It is much easier to teach from a book than to teach a living language from the mouth. I was taught French in a college where most of the priests had been in France for a period, and they knew French well and used to speak it to each other during their recreation. I was taught French as I was taught Latin and Greek, and I have done a great deal of reading in French. On one occasion in France the light went out in my room, and when the man came to fix it he was able to understand what I wanted and he said, "It is all right now." I think he said, "Oh, ccedila va"—

Professor Hayes

It was not too bad at all.

The Taoiseach

Oh, no. I did not say it. It was the man who came to my room who said that. He knew what I wanted, because I think that was what he said. I did not have the immediate words used in conversation. My reading in French was not of novels but of science and politics and history, and I did not know the ordinary daily speech. It is the ordinary daily speech which we want. What I wanted to say was this: I could teach a French class with a book but I could not teach a French class as it should be taught—as a living language. So it was with a lot of our teachers. Unfortunately they had to learn the language, depending very largely on the book, and therefore they were not free to avail of opportunities which occur, as people who know the language are. If a child stumbles in a classroom a teacher who knows the language well can use the opportunity to use a phrase in the language. But you must know the language well to avail of things that happen in the classroom and you must know it as a living language. That did not happen with most of us and with most of the teachers up to the present. Of course there are some wonderful exceptions.

I agree with one of the speakers who was talking about the high standard. It is possible we have been trying to go a bit too fast in the schools, that our examinations and tests are too severe. However, as I have said, it is not the past that we have got to examine, it is the present position. What I was hoping was that if we could get the right personnel for the inquiry, in which the public would have confidence, that we could expose a great many of the fallacies which in many cases form the basis of the campaign against Irish.

I would be tempted to go over the field that has been traversed here and to controvert some of the things which have been said. In my opinion, some of the statements made were fallacious and some quite wrong but, as was pointed out by the Chair a couple of times, this is a comparatively restricted motion. It is whether an inquiry should be set up or not. The one thing you could say is that if an inquiry is set up you should have some prima facie case for setting it up. I think the fact that the position is not satisfactory is sufficient for that. I think a great deal of the campaign is based on misunderstanding. I do not believe that the child is frustrated, and I have been watching children and grandchildren and watching young people around me, and I do not believe that the learning of a second language, in the way that Irish is taught, is going to frustrate anybody. Of course, it would depend on the teacher, very largely. A stupid person could do a lot of damage, and if the thing is not done properly it could cause some trouble.

It is my opinion that a child will pick up, with comparative ease, words and phrases in another language and distinguish between them. I know one pair of children who were brought up with Irish to start with. I hear them speaking English to one child and speaking Irish to another child, and I do not think they have any difficulty in doing that. I see no reason why, if you are explaining something to a child, particularly something abstract, and an English word which the child knows will explain it, why that word should not be used—although generally, I believe the direct method is the best way of teaching the language as a living language.

The values of a second language are very great. It used be the mark of secondary education, beyond primary education, and that when you went into secondary school you learned a language other than the home language, the vernacular. One of the reasons for that was the discipline it taught, apart from any utility which the language might afford you after-wards—that by the very learning of another language, the study of its structure, you held it up in comparison to the language you knew as a child, and that led to an appreciation of languages, an appreciation of phrases and the construction of words and so on.

I believe that, certainly for the more advanced classes in the schools, the introduction of Irish would mean giving to our people one of the benefits that were supposed to be derived from secondary education. I do not say there will not always be one principal language—though I have met people who have told me quite honestly and sincerely that they could use French, German and English with equal facility. With my knowledge of languages, I questioned that. I have to admit I instantly go to English when I want to express myself accurately. Any discipline which I got from other languages was with reference to English, more or less as a standard, and it affected my appreciation of English more than it affected my appreciation of other languages which we learned.

This subject is so wide that one could keep on for hours speaking on different aspects of it. This hopeless and helpless attitude of some people in connection with it is bound to damn the efforts of even the most enthusiastic and most energetic. If the nation is going to restore the language, we must try and not have this attitude of mind so constantly expressed. The unfortunate thing is that those who express this defeatist attitude are precisely those who are likely to have most attention paid to them. I agree the language has to be taught orally. I have been pressing for that myself for many years. There should be an oral examination in Irish in secondary schools. It is true there have been certain difficulties in the way. I have never agreed with any Minister for Education that these difficulties are not capable of being surmounted and I am delighted to know that the present Minister has made progress in the direction of trying to get it done. I know it is very difficult. I know some of the schools will not like it. I know the difficulty of comparing schools with regard to prizes and so on, but if we are sincere about this effort at restoration we must face it.

May I refer to some things about the economic side? I will take the case of doctors first. As Taoiseach, I am responsible for the Local Appointments Commission. It is connected with my Department, and I am answerable for anything that can be raised in the Dáil in connection with it. On many occasions when there is an examination and test, and there is only one place to be gained, many people will be disappointed who think they are better than the person who gets the appointment. From time to time I myself have looked at the marks in their various divisions, studying how the marks were arranged and how they were achieved. I do not think there was a single case in all the complaints that were put up that was justifiable. I think the appointments were made honestly, but those who did not get the positions thought that something underhand was being done.

So far as Irish is concerned, in Dáil Eireann, on more than one occasion, I read out what the conditions were. I think you will all admit if a doctor is to go to the Gaeltacht, to an Irish-speaking area, he should know the language in which he has to communicate with his patients, and the people there have a right to have a doctor who will be able to speak to them in the language they all know best. I think it is a reasonable qualification that a doctor in the Gaeltacht should have a competent knowledge of the language. If we cannot get such a person, then the more Irish the person who is appointed knows the better. Therefore, a good knowledge of Irish would add considerably to that person's qualifications.

There were a few cases in which I regretted very much that an excellent doctor was not able to get the position because he did not know Irish, but the next man was certainly a competent person too. On the scale of marks, perhaps, he was not as high, but he was competent, and had the extra advantage of being able to speak to the people in the language they knew.

The next thing we come to is the question of civil servants. Why was it regarded as desirable to have knowledge of Irish essential for promotion? It was for this reason: that, if you had at the top, and we did have people, some who came in from the past, who did not know Irish, we wanted to make sure that situation would not continue and that the people who would come up to replace them afterwards would have a knowledge of the Irish language. If the man at the top does not have some knowledge of Irish, it is slowing down the process all down the line; and the juniors, who use the language, would be stopped at the top by the fact that the man at the top, to whom they were sending up their minutes in Irish, is not able to read or understand the language. It is common sense that we want State servants to be in a position, when the people are able to communicate with them in Irish, that they will be able to do the State's work through Irish. It is desirable to have the civil servants know it, and it is desirable that knowledge of Irish should be required for promotion. Otherwise we are not sincere about making a systematic effort towards the restoration of the language. If you have an aim before you, you must take the natural means to reach that aim. If you go forward one day and go backwards the next, if you do not take the natural steps, you will not reach your aim. I am sure this committee, if we are able to get one, will find that a lot of the things done from the State's point of view have been things that were necessary if we were going to make any systematic approach towards reaching the end in view.

I know that when I went to secondary school I would have been very glad to have Irish given to me instead of another subject. That was not done, due to the headmaster who arranged the school programme. Many times since I was sorry I had not been given that opportunity. I, for one, would have been very glad if it had been arranged by the State that it would be necessary to take Irish as one of my secondary school subjects. It would have saved a great deal of trouble afterwards. If we have the Irish language taught in the primary schools, and I think it is desirable we should in order that future citizens will not be denied what ought to be part of their birthright, then we should not have a gap when children go into secondary schools. Some of the teachers are in a better position to teach the language in the secondary schools than the teachers in primary schools. Some schools do a lot of subjects through Irish, others do not, but there is no compulsion to do it. However, there is a suggestion that where schools are able to do all their work through Irish it is desirable that they do so.

If the teaching and study of Irish is done intensely over a short period you will get better results than if you do a little to-day and a little a short time afterwards. It is the continuity and intensity of the effort that matters. If you have schools that can teach Irish over a couple of years, the students, once they leave schools like that, have a good command of the language. If we want to use the language in our daily lives, we will have to be accustomed to the phrases and combinations of words that are attached to the things, abstract and otherwise, in our daily lives. The children will get that if they are able to go to schools of that sort. If you have secondary schools teaching all subjects through Irish you will have desirable results.

Professor Hayes

At what time is it intended to allow Senator Baxter to conclude? What does the Taoiseach desire to do about the motion?

The Taoiseach

I have said we will try to implement it, and that we will try to restrict it in this way: Let us look to the teaching first. It is obvious that, if we are to restore the language, we will have to do it through the teaching. Let us try to put up a commission that will examine the present position in regard to the teaching of Irish and make suggestions, if necessary, as to how it can be improved. I do not believe in going into the past. There is no use in having commissions that will take years to examine and make a report. Let us have a survey of the present position; let them make recommendations as to the best means by which—through the teaching to start with—we can work in the direction of restoring the language. I know this is more restricted than the original motion but I think it is sufficiently wide for any commission.

I come for a moment to the universities. If students in the secondary schools are taught through Irish, it ought to be possible for them to continue through Irish at least some of their subjects—the subjects in which they are going to specialise—in the universities. I know the difficulties in the universities. I know the difficulty of textbooks. I am fully alive to the fact that one of the things most of our people feel is that they have to make their career in life through educative channels, and during that particular period they are rather inclined to object to anything outside the courses in which they are to be examined and in which they are to get their degrees, and so on.

It ought to be possible to carry on in the universities the work done in the secondary schools. As Senator Hayes said, it is complained that there are no textbooks in Irish. I say it is a shame. There are some. I know of some mathematical ones. I tried to get certain textbooks translated in order that they would be available. It ought to be the patriotic duty of professors in the universities dealing with certain subjects to try to provide textbooks for their students. It can be done. Again, all you want is the will. I know my own difficulties in regard to the language. I know how difficult it is. It requires an effort to use it and naturally we all like to take the line of least resistance. But I think it would be good for the universities if the professors capable of doing so— and they can do it—would produce textbooks, certainly up to the degree. If they have got them up to the degree, textbooks after that can be added later. I know there is a need.

When we talk about nothing being done, I would ask anybody to consider the position in the past. I suppose nobody here is as old as I am, and I know what the position was in the first few years of the century. There were relatively few books. If you wanted to read some simple things, you did not have the reading materials. That is not the way to-day. You have a number of textbooks, a number of periodicals and books of a general character that are available for reading to-day.

I will only say one last word—about the standardisation of spelling. The intention to do this arose in this way. I saw the need for it when I was in charge of the Education Department. When I was a boy in the national school, textbooks were kept in the homes of the people. They lasted for a generation and sometimes for more than one generation. The parents knew some of the lessons off by heart. But they were not the sort of textbooks quite suitable for Irish children. Besides, some of them were rather difficult. I thought it would be a good idea if we could get a selection made from some of our best Irish authors.

One of the first things that confronted me was that they spelled differently and it was necessary to try to get some uniformity. It is all nonsense to talk about the pronunciation of, for instance, the word spelled "cúnta". What other way would you pronounce it? You might have a bit more nasality in the "conganta", but the spelling is not intended to be completely phonetical. After all, on many occasions, spelling is not phonetical. Consequently, it was intended to try to enable us to go on with the publication of books so that there would be some uniformity in them and that carelessness would not develop.

I have been warned about the time. All I want to say is this. We are prepared to try to get a commission— some body of inquiry—to go into this question, to examine the present position as regards the teaching of Irish, in so far as that makes for the revival of the language, and to recommend what improvements in what is being done should be adopted in order to proceed towards the aim that has been accepted as the national aim, the aim of restoring the language, not necessarily as the single language, but as a medium of everyday speech for our people.

Mr. Baxter

Now that the Government at this late hour have intimated, through the words of the Taoiseach, that they will implement the motion in the form the Taoiseach has indicated to the House, it is only left for me to say that I appreciate the wisdom of the Government in taking that decision. But I want to emphasise one or two points.

I put down this motion with a certain hesitancy. I did not put it down without prior consultation with my colleagues, and, when I speak of my colleagues, I speak not only of my colleagues in this House but of those in the other House. Members of the Front Bench agree that this problem ought to be faced up to. Now the Government have accepted the viewpoint that there is a necessity that this inquiry should be carried out.

The Taoiseach in his very interesting and vehement speech indicated his disagreement with many of the things said. I do not find fault with that. The liberty enjoyed by the subjects of this country is the equivalent of anything enjoyed by people in free democracies everywhere. It is very good that the people are free to express their views, even on the methods adopted to restore the language. It will be a poor day for Ireland and a poor day for the spirit of the country when we are all saying the same thing. Whether it is pleasing or displeasing to the Taoiseach and the rest of us, let us encourage our people to speak out and express their views on this or any other matter.

There are 60 members in this House. This motion was put down before Christmas and was circulated to members a month ago. There has been every opportunity for any member of the House who has anything to say to come in here and express his views. The records will show the views of members when this matter was discussed. It will be an interesting experience for the nation. It is significant that, despite a great deal of dissatisfaction, apparently some displeasure and apparently a degree of opposition, so few voices were raised here in a critical manner. I am glad the Taoiseach has accepted this motion because, while it is terribly important to have faith, faith without good works will not enable us to reach our objective.

There is the further point that we are engaged in a battle. If a general is to win this battle, it is of the utmost importance that he should survey the ground, look behind as well as in front and to each side of him, left and right. That is what we hope this inquiry will enable us to do. I think there should be very little restriction. I do not think anyone has to apologise for what is being attempted, to restore the national language here. If we have been in error in regard to some of our methods that is understandable. On the other hand, anyone who has anything to say ought to have the opportunity of saying it and be invited to come along and put his cards on the table.

As I said in my opening remarks, I do not think anybody here would ask that we should have a plebiscite to determine whether or not the national language should be restored or abandoned. I am glad the Government have accepted the motion. I hope the matter will be approached in the proper spirit by all. Furthermore, I believe the decision of this House will have a psychological reaction on many of our people, make them hesitate about criticism and encourage those who have been rather discouraged by the lack of success to make a new effort in the struggle we must wage, whether our period here be long or short so that, when we pass on, as Senator O'Quigley said so very well to-night, our national heritage will be there to be enjoyed and enriched by those who come after us.

Mr. Lynch

In relation to the Senator's statement that the Government should have told the House much earlier in regard to the duration of the debate, we did not want to curb the debate. That might have been done if the Government had revealed they were prepared to adopt the spirit of the motion.

Mr. Baxter

I did not mean at this late hour to-day.

Mr. Lynch

No minimum hours are laid down for the teaching of any subject in the national schools, including even Irish.

An Cathaoirleach

What is the position in regard to the motion?

Mr. Baxter

I take it the motion is accepted and interpreted in the Taoiseach's language. I think it would be psychologically wrong to withdraw the motion.

The Taoiseach

We shall have to get terms of reference for this inquiry. The inquiry will have to be related to teaching. That is sufficiently wide to take up the time of the commission or whatever body it may be. When that is finished, there is no reason, if we so desire, to stop us from going farther afield. I see the difficulty. Perhaps Senator Hayes might give us the benefit of his experience and suggest the best way to finish this matter. I should not like to see the Government bound.

Professor Hayes

I am afraid there is only one thing that can be done. If the Government is accepting this motion in some form we will either have to withdraw the motion and trust the Government to produce the committee or change the wording but it is far too late now to do that. Will the House have an opportunity of seeing the terms of reference? I presume it will. That is another difficult matter to answer.

The Taoiseach

The idea is to examine the present position and make recommendations as to the steps that can be taken.

Professor Hayes

With regard to the schools only?

The Taoiseach

Teaching.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.