Hanafin: FG policy puts Gaeilge in danger
February 24, 2011
MINISTER Mary Hanafin has said the survival of the Irish language is in the balance if Fine Gael is given a mandate to implement its education policy.
She said the party’s plans to stop making Irish a mandatory Leaving Cert subject would repeat the mistakes made in Britain when students opted to turn their back on languages.
Ms Hanafin said it was a “live or die” situation for the country’s native tongue and she feared for its status if Enda Kenny’s policy was adopted. “There is considerable evidence to suggest such a move would lead to the marginalisation and the eventual decline of the Irish language.
“If you look to see what happened when a similar measure was introduced to the teaching of modern languages in Britain, I think we see what the real outcome of this would be. The decision to make teaching of languages optional [in Britain] had a catastrophic impact on the number of students taking language. “The consequences for Irish, competing with the highest status languages in the world, would be even more dramatic,” she said. Ms Hanafin was speaking at FF headquarters where she spoke with fellow minister Pat Carey about its 20-year strategy for Irish.
She criticised the claim by Mr Kenny that the policy had been developed after talking to school children and she questioned if the same students asked for school to be abolished would the Fine Gael leader oblige. Ms Hanafin said it was important to improve the way Irish was taught but to retain its status in the exam system. And she said voters could not underestimate her contention that Mr Kenny wanted to “get rid of that one part of our cultural identity that ensures the Irish people are standing out”. “We are people with a very distinct culture and the language is a very distinct part of it,” he said.
Ms Hanafin and Mr Carey denied the launch of the strategy and the organising of a press conference was motivated by a desire to expose a weakness in Fine Gael rather than a genuine concern for the teaching of the subject. “It has always been at the central core of our manifestos,” Ms Hanafin said.
Irish Examiner – Conor Ryan
