Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 September 2020
30. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration the policy he has to promote all Irish language and bilingual crèches in and outside the Gaeltacht to ensure all parents have a choice between an English-language crèche, a bilingual crèche and an Irish-language crèche in view of the ability of very young children to easily learn a second language. [22329/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraDéanaim comhghairdeas leis an Aire as a cheapachán.
What is the Department's policy to ensure that all children nationally have a choice between Irish-language crèches, bilingual crèches and English-language crèches? We know that children absorb languages and the younger they are, the easier they find it to learn two languages or three if they are exposed to those languages.
What is the Department's policy on this issue and on providing that basic service to our people?
I thank the Deputy for his kind words. I believe there is strong value in supporting the provision of services in the Irish language to children at an early age because, as the Deputy has said, they are able to pick up languages much more quickly at that age. Preschools and crèches can play a really important role in promoting Irish as a living language.
I note that early learning and care services are private businesses and they determine the medium through which they provide their service. My Department provides funding to providers through various schemes to subsidise early learning and childcare costs and for various quality initiatives. We are particularly keen to support providers who wish to operate through Irish.
There are currently 247 childcare services that identify as naíonraí with Pobal and my Department. Of these, 237 provide the ECCE scheme. For the 2019-20 programme year, my Department provided these services with €25 million worth of supports.
Tusla, the early years regulator, and the Better Start quality development service offer services to the sector through Irish and continue their efforts to improve the Irish language service. My Department also ensures that resources are made available through Irish.
Collaboration between officials in my Department and in the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has resulted in a set of actions under the five-year Action Plan for the Irish Language 2018-2022. These actions are in support of the overarching 20-year strategy for the Irish language and are designed to affirm the importance of early learning and care in encouraging the development and revitalisation of the Irish language.
First 5, the whole-of-government strategy for children and families contains two actions specifically aimed at supporting the development of the Irish language within the early learning and care sector. These involve ensuring that children in Gaeltacht areas have access to early learning services through Irish and developing mechanisms to provide Irish language supports to services where there are high proportions of children learning through the medium of Irish.
My Department remains committed to supporting growth in the number of Irish language early years services.
I accept that there are a large number of naíonraí but a naíonra is a preschool whereas a naíolann is a crèche. There is a world of difference between the two. Getting to children at the crèche stage presents great advantages as against getting to them at the ECCE stage. For one, the service has them all day. There are naíolanna in the country operating through Irish. I am sure the Minister would agree that there is a privatisation drive in this country and an idea that everything should be market driven. The first sentence of his answer was that these are private businesses which we fund. Of course, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Is there an overarching positive policy in the Minister's Department which aims to promote to concept of diversity of choice of language between the two official languages or a mixture of both? Is there a policy to introduce a small amount of Irish in English-speaking crèches? The Minister is correct that this was part of the 20-year strategy. Is there a big policy which the Department's money could be used to implement?
My understanding is that the two points I listed from our overarching strategy for dealing with the early years sector, First 5, act on elements of the 20-year strategy. The overarching strategy for the Irish language is being enacted in our sector through these points in First 5. They are carrying on down. That is my understanding of the link. It is important to note that, acting on those commitments in First 5, we are working on the creation of two Irish language early years posts to further develop Irish language services. Unfortunately, the hiring process for these posts was delayed because of Covid but I will see where we are with the hiring of these officers as their duties will focus directly on the Irish language in the early years sector and on supporting developments in that area.
The State has a constitutional duty to promote the Irish language, which is also its clear policy. When it comes to delivering, it always seems to be a case of listing what we are doing while not really doing anything. There are many Gaelscoileanna in this city. In many cases, and with great difficulty, the communities behind these Gaelscoileanna have provided naíonraí. One would have thought that the Department would have a positive policy to make sure that there was a naíolann or crèche connected with every Gaelscoil and naíonra. It should not be a matter of whether the market wants it, in which case it would be delivered, but a positive policy driven by the Minister's Department as part of the national policy on the promotion of the Irish language. When one gives two languages to children of one, two or three years, one gives them a lifetime present for free which will give them a huge advantage throughout the rest of their lives while also making it easier to learn a third, fourth or fifth language, as has been well proven.
I absolutely accept the Deputy's wider point on the learning of languages. I take on board his point regarding Irish language provision from the youngest ages. I am ten weeks in the job but I will endeavour to get a better sense of how these various elements interact because I accept its importance.
