The Government has published a strategy to improve the delivery of public services through the Irish language.
The new action plan contains a number of commitments to improve the provision of services to speakers of the language and residents in Gaeltacht areas.
The Programme for Government contains a commitment to put in place measures to encourage the use of the Irish language and to support Gaeltacht communities.
The Action Plan for Irish language Public Services, launched by Minister for the Gaeltacht Dara Calleary, lays out steps in achieving those aims and delivering key commitments under Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla.
Among them ensuring 20% of new recruits to the public service will be competent in Irish by 2030, public services in Gaeltacht areas will be provided through Irish, and Irish will be the working languages of public offices in Gaeltacht areas so Irish speakers can use Gaeilge in their dealings with the State.
The plan was approved by ministers at this morning's Cabinet meeting.
It covers the period from now until 2028 when it will be reviewed, and if necessary, tweaked to ensure delivery on its commitments.
The plan outlines initiatives across a number of areas to support its delivery.
They include identifying language champions within public bodies, where initiatives will take place to promote the use and learning of Irish in the workplace, and increasing the availability of Irish language courses.
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It also suggests campaigns to highlight Irish language employment opportunities in the public sector.
There are also proposals to consider the feasibility of allowing employees spend time in the Gaeltacht or allow for secondment to offices where Irish is a working language.
In the education sector, it proposes to support Irish language in Irish and English-medium schools, and supporting the Irish language as a campus language in third level education settings.
Earlier plans 'lacked ambition'
Speaking ahead of the plan's approval this morning, the General Secretary of Conradh na Gaelige, Julian de Spáinn, said a whole-of-Government approach was needed on the issue, adding that earlier plans "severely lacked ambition".
He said that the new plans have to have ambition and to have resources allocated to implement them. and called for the education system to be aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
"This is basically a skills-based system, which is what they're actually going to measure competency with, in these jobs for the public sector," he said.
"That means that the curriculum and the education system for Irish, the whole way from start to finish, should be aligned to the CEFR. That would be a backways design approach, to actually look at what you want students to be able to do when they finish their school time."
This means that they can be independent and competent speakers of the language, Mr de Spáinn added.
He emphasised that the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science also need to be involved because the public service will need many different skills.
"We need to ensure that third level courses are available through Irish. At the moment, we know that 8% of students attend primary education through the medium of Irish and that drops to 4% in second level, and drops to below 1% in third level," he said.
"So there needs to be huge ambition and targets to ensure that we're increasing the number of courses available through Irish, and the availability to learn Irish while people are in third level, because there's a huge gap there. And if we don't address that gap, then we won't have the people available."
