Éamon Ó Cuív presses for urgent action on Irish-language recruitment

Minister, the targets relating to the provision of services to Irish and as a consequence the amount of people to be recruited with the ability to do their business in Irish in the newly enacted Official Languages Amendment Act are really, really challenging and will take urgent action and it's just wondering what work has been done to date, because this has been in gestation for a long time, what work has been done to date to progress this? Thank you very much. Deputy, thank you very much for raising this issue and I want to say I do welcome the enactment of the Official Languages Amendment Act 2021, which just occurred on 22 December last. It does underpin a key Programme for Government commitment and it is notable that this coincides with Irish having become a full working language of course at the EU institutions since January. As you are well aware from submissions made to the Oireachtas Committee on the Irish Language and the Irish-speaking community, the achievement of an ambitious 20% recruitment target of proficient Irish speakers by 2030 requires a cross-government approach. It is ambitious and it is what we must work towards. This is against a backdrop whereby only 0.4% of posts are designated currently by civil service employers as being Irish-speaking posts. The Act provides that within six months of the date of enactment, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Quail to support in the media, will establish an Irish Languages Services Advisory Committee. The functions of this committee are set out in the Act, as you know, and include the preparation of a national plan within two years of the establishment to increase the provision of services through the medium of Irish, as well as periodic surveying of the number of Irish speakers employed by the public service. The work of this committee may include consideration of approaches to the future recruitment of Irish speakers, my department and the public appointment service, as the principal recruiter for the civil and public service, will be represented as members of this committee. There are a number of actions that you will be aware of that my department and PAS are already taking to increase the number of fluent Irish speakers in the civil service, and they will be put on the record. Mr. Minister, I know that people wish to achieve this, but it will not happen of its own accord. I think passing the Act was actually going to be the easy bit of this. Now, you said two years to prepare the plan, now we are in 2024, I think it is impossible to achieve it by 2030 unless we start now, and there are some obvious things that do not need two years to plan. So, really my question to you are already in anticipation of the bill, what has actually been done to increase the number of people who will be capable of doing the business through Irish, because there is no point just advertising the jobs if the people are not there. So, for example, have you had a really serious talk with the Minister of Higher Education in relation to the need to provide more courses to Irish and in Irish at third level, to ensure that there will be qualified people to actually provide the services and that we won't once again hit the wall and say, well, sorry, we can't achieve it. Thank you very much, Deputy, and I agree with you that this is not going to happen of its own accord, and, you know, the Government has now signed up to this, the legislation is in place, and we are all going to have to work together to meet this goal, and I would point out that there are dedicated recruitment and promotion competitions targeted at the Irish language speakers, as you have rightly said, that in itself is not enough. Last year, PAS held general civil service competitions for individuals with fluency in Irish clerical officer and higher executive officer level. Today, PAS is launching an Irish executive officer competition, but we are dependent on the quality of applicants and on the availability of a pool of people to apply and who can meet the requisite level of competence that is there. In addition, we are investing a lot in providing training for existing civil servants. New hires, Irish language training courses continue to be made available for new hires and for all existing civil servants via One Learning, which is the Learning and Development Centre for the Civil Service based on my department, and close to 500 such enrolments took place in 2021. But I accept your overall point. This has to be a cross-government approach, including through further and higher education. I welcome anybody improving their Irish, but I am a realist and very hard-headed about this. There are 100,000, give or take, daily Irish speakers in the country. To provide a service, and there are interesting standards laid down in Canada on this whole issue, to provide a service competently through the Irish language, you would really want to be a daily Irish speaker. You would want to be absolutely at home with the language. There is no point in advertising the jobs if we have not made comprehensive plans that there will be people there with the competencies to apply for the jobs, which does, for example, focus on the higher education sector and on the whole Guelph Scotland and so on, but we are a bit better off at second level and first level than we are at third level. That is just one little step that we need to challenge. So, Minister, is there going to be a comprehensive all of government to make sure that when you advertise the job, you actually have the people to apply for the job, with a real competency in Ireland? Yes, thanks Deputy. There will be, and that is the process now that is set out in the legislation, which Minister Martin has taken responsibility for. I think the core point is, and you have acknowledged it yourself, the number of Irish speakers applying to join the civil service is quite low, and that in itself is a problem that we need to address. I have been looking at the figures and to give context when comparing the most recent analogous general civil service competitions undertaken by PAS at clerical officer level, applicants were no requirement for fluent Irish, there were about 12,200, and applicants where fluent Irish is required about 165, so 1.35 per cent by comparison. There are some specialist roles that are presenting significant challenges for recruitment. That is a reality, so this is not an issue that can be resolved through the recruitment channel itself. The availability of people with the requisite skills and also willing to apply and take up these roles is key. So this does require a whole-of-government approach, and that is what Minister Martin is now coordinating through her role as provided for in the Act. Minister, it is vital that increased effort is made to streamline the delivery of large capital projects. Too many communities are awaiting the delivery of important capital projects, and any change and delays in timelines are simply causing a loss of good faith when it comes to informing the public. I ask, what is your department undertaking to combat this issue? Thank you very much, Deputy Dillon. The update of the Public Spending Code in 2019, combined with lessons learned from domestic projects and international best practice, highlighted the need for more structured scrutiny of major public investment projects, particularly in the area of planned delivery, costings and risk. This is to ensure that government is making decisions with a full picture of the proposal, its costs, risks and benefits. The revised NDP pledges to restructure the oversight and implementation of capital projects, to strengthen scrutiny of major public investment proposals and to drive improved project performance and value for money. It is important to acknowledge that the majority of major public investment projects are delivered on budget and on time, and there is a high level of professionalism across the sectors. However, having recognised the higher risk profile of larger projects, new procedures have been introduced in order to improve project outturns, avoid cost overruns and avoid scheduled delays. I think that left me a minute short. As you are aware, my department has put in place an external assurance process to provide independent project scrutiny at key decision stages. This will involve independent expert reviews at two key stages in the project lifecycle under the Public Spending Code. The purpose of this is to improve value for money and to support funding departments and government with expert insight. This process for major capital projects, which is for projects in excess of €100 million, will be in place in the future. Very often, the Public Spending Code and the external assurance process can get blamed for delays where that process does not even apply. It focuses on issues such as cost, risk and ability to deliver. As you know, a new major projects advisory group has been established to further strengthen project management. As a prerequisite to seeking government approval for projects at the relevant decision points, project proposals and external reviews will be scrutinised by the advisory group. These new arrangements bring Ireland into line with leading international performers and meet a recommendation of the IMF's Public Investment Management Assessment of Ireland. It is my assessment that these safeguards will not delay projects. They are there to streamline them and to avoid mistakes and to avoid risks materialising. Thanks, Deputy. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for joining us.