[Article] ICCL backs scrapping Garda's Irish requirement

Victor

Wow, no longer will "foreign languages" be restricted to "English". Who knows, next there might be a Garda soccer team.* Note the Garda currently relies on the army for Arabic translations.

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/4235607?view=Eircomnet

ICCL backs scrapping Garda's Irish requirement
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 16th October, 2004

The Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL) has backed moves to remove the Irish language as a barrier to entry to the Garda Siochána.

Announcing a plan on Thursday to boost Garda numbers by 2,000, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell said the entrance criteria, including the age limit and the Irish-language requirement, would be examined.

The move is to help expand the pool of potential recruits, aiming particularly at members of ethnic minorities.

ICCL Director, Ms Aisling Reidy said today: "Ensuring a modern, effective police service for Ireland, which reflects the diverse make up of Irish society, is an important objective, and one that we believe removing a ban on membership of the Gardai unless you have Irish will help to achieve.

"While the ability to speak Irish should be treated as an asset and positive factor for any member of the Garda, it does not follow that the Garda serve the public better by excluding those who do not speak Irish.

"The removal of the Irish-language requirement of course has particular relevance for recruits from ethnic minorities, but could also improve recruitment from other sections of Irish society where Irish is not a skill individuals have," she added.

* it actually exists already, but scores all of 4 links on google

chewy

how difficult is the gardai irish exam?

i guess id be favour of dropping the requirement.. but, i know theres has been a problem with this inrelation to teachers too, but how much more difficult would it be for a newcomer to study irish for say 3 months and go in and pass the irish exam as opposed to some irish guy who scrapped through irish in his leaving cert, what the required grade from your lc in irish for the guards?

seamus

An archaic requirement, I would highly recommend removal of this, especially if the Goverment is serious about increasing Garda numbers.

luckat

Depends on the way you look at it.

a) Irish shouldn't be compulsory - we should speak it and be fluent in it because we love it;

but on the other hand

b) Just how dim do we want our Guards to be? If they can't pass an Irish exam, will they be able to find their feet to put their shoes on in the morning?

Neil_Sedaka

I think they should scrap the leaving cert requirement too and the height thing. And have you noticed how all the Guards these days are able bodied? I'd like to see far more physically and mentally retarded Guards on our streets:p

Victor

Neil_Sedaka wrote:

I think they should scrap the .... height thing.

The "height thing" has been repalced by a task based exam (I presume things like 'climb a wall X height').

gandalf

They should also drop the age restriction and put it in line with NI lets say which will take able bodied candidates up to 52 (I think). It would mean that more people that have worked in the real world get in and make the force more sympathic and also have a few members who can say vehicle properly

Cork

gandalf wrote:

They should also drop the age restriction and put it in line with NI lets say which will take able bodied candidates up to 52 (I think). It would mean that more people that have worked in the real world get in and make the force more sympathic and also have a few members who can say vehicle properly

I agree 100% with this. Nobody should restict entry into any job on the grounds of age.

But on the Irish Language, with the publication of the Irish Language act - I am entitled to conduct my business with the public service thru Irish.

I think that dropping the requirement is inconsistant with the act.

But apart from that quibble - I don't see the harm.

Victor

Nobody should restict entry into any job on the grounds of age.

Within reason.

But on the Irish Language, with the publication of the Irish Language act - I am entitled to conduct my business with the public service thru Irish. I think that dropping the requirement is inconsistant with the act.

So, say, the Russian mafia will now insist on their rights to be interrogated in a mix of broken Irish / Russian? While you may have the right to conduct your business with the public service through Irish, there is no obligation for the entire public service to speak Irish (at all times). It is neither practical nor necessary.

It is quite practical to, say, teach an Irish citizen (a restriction that is likely to stay) of Russian extraction (or rather with Russian as a mother tongue) to speak enough Irish to question or arrest someone - relatively simple procedures. Another to teach garda Mick to pass himself off as Russian in a undercover operation. One very practical measure would be for salary increments to be given to Gardaí that have specific language skills, as is the case at the moment with other skills.

Cork wrote:

I agree 100% with this.

??!?!??! :rolleyes:

Big Ears

I am in favour of this change .

OfflerCrocGod

luckat wrote:

b) Just how dim do we want our Guards to be? If they can't pass an Irish exam, will they be able to find their feet to put their shoes on in the morning?

I have an Irish passport and have lived for years in Ireland but I was born in Italy therefore I spent my primary education years in Italy were Irish was not on the curriculum I have better English then many people in Dublin, I consider myself more Irish then Italian and yet I would be unable to join our national police force because I cannot/do not want to speak a dead language. I'm sorry but I fail to see the use in such a regulation. I have never once needed Irish in over 15 years of being in Ireland, even in the "gaeltacht" people spoke better English then Irish. Stop beating the horse.

pork99

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

I consider myself more Irish then Italian and yet I would be unable to join our national police force because I cannot/do not want to speak a dead language. I'm sorry but I fail to see the use in such a regulation. I have never once needed Irish in over 15 years of being in Ireland, even in the "gaeltacht" people spoke better English then Irish.

The end result of compulsory Irish in the Leaving, its being mandatory for entry to NUI colleges and the Irish exams for entrance to the public services has been to hasten the demise of Irish as a living language.

It is now effectively a dead language people learn by rote for advancement, like Latin in the Medieval church.

simu

Grr, stop calling my language dead!

I think that in terms of providing services to Irish speakers and in terms of making a career as a Garda accessible to more people, it would be better to ensure that a certain proportion of students admitted to the Garda training courses are competent Irish speakers and not to worry about the Irish language standard of the rest (or maybe, give them the option of attending Irish classes, if they want).

pork99

simu wrote:

Grr, stop calling my language dead!

Well the reality is that even in Gaeltacht areas it's in free-fall decline as the everyday language, to the extent that the government has to bribe people there to continue using it.

I certainly think of English as my first language and it is my native language as it is for the overwhelming majority of the population of this country despite the attempts of the state to pretend otherwise.

But I do think it's a shame that Gaelic has declined like this. It would be cool to live in a genuinely bi-lingual country.

bonkey

The reality is that free-fall or no, Irish isn't a dead language. The term dead language means something very specific - and no evolving language (as Irish is) will ever qualify as being dead.

And I find it somewhat ironic that you think it would be cool to live in a bilingual country, lament that Irish is declining (has declined), and yet your first stated stance is "well, its dead, so whats the dealio".

One of the biggest contributors to the decline of a language is people insisting that it has already declined, is worthless, and so on....exactly what you are doing. And then you lament the results of your denigration!

jc

Hobbes

They should do what they do for government jobs. Not compulsory, but you get 10% of your final score added if you do the exams in Irish.

mycroft

pork99 wrote:

But I do think it's a shame that Gaelic has declined like this. It would be cool to live in a genuinely bi-lingual country.

Theres a piece of legal reform that hasn't been considered before this.

A rather unscruplous barrister offered this suggestion to me once.

Say you were arrested for a crime (This is all hypothetical you could and can insist that your trial takes place entirely in Irish.

It's the first offical language, and judges and gardaí are supposed to be fluent in it. However finding a judge and council and a jury (the jury could avail of translation, but again the cost and hassle of setting this up).

Furthermore all witnesses who aren't civil servants would/may have to avail of translation (and considering how much fun barristers have with the nuance of language you're opening a fun can of worms in legalise) and Gardaí are "theoritical" fluent in the language, your trial has the potential to be delayed for years, thereby increasing your chance of a mis trial, or dismissal.

In no way should the above be considered an endorsement of this unethical behaviour.

However if the removal of Irish as a requirement for the Gardaí goes ahead this will have to be considered.

pork99

bonkey wrote:

The reality is that free-fall or no, Irish isn't a dead language. The term dead language means something very specific - and no evolving language (as Irish is) will ever qualify as being dead.

Ok I'm overstating my case to call it a dead language. But it is certainly only living on a tax payer funded life support system - which I've no problem with. The Irish language should be preserved and if that's the only way of achieving that so be it.

bonkey wrote:

And I find it somewhat ironic that you think it would be cool to live in a bilingual country, lament that Irish is declining (has declined), and yet your first stated stance is "well, its dead, so whats the dealio".

One of the biggest contributors to the decline of a language is people insisting that it has already declined, is worthless, and so on....exactly what you are doing. And then you lament the results of your denigration!

jc

So I'm personally responsible for 80 years of this state's failed Irish language policies? Where did I say it's worthless?

Unfortunately I associate Gaelic with sadistic perverts in priests' collars and when I left school it would not have bothered me I had never heard it spoken again. That attitude is not far removed from how most people view it - it's crammed for exams and then forgotten.

But I think the real murder of the Gaelic language was committed by generations of arrogant high-handed middle class Gaelgeoirs, the sort of people Flann O'Brien, a genuine native Irish speaker who didn't speak English until he was 8 years old, called "the most nauseating phenomenon in Europe" (see "No Laughing Matter - the Life and Times of Flann O'Brien" by Anthony Cronin for more). They propagated an isolationist "miserabilist" version of Irish language culture which combined with the policies of compulsion in the education system and state employment and which I believe alienated most people from the language.

If you want to revive Gaelic compulsion will only ever have the opposite effect to that intended. It's the majority of Irish people like me who are alienated from and/or disinterested in Gaelic who have to be persuaded and won over. Whatever else engages my sympathies, it is not being excluded from jobs in my own country because I don't know a language which frankly almost might as well be Polish (and that after over 10 years of being forced to learn it whether I liked it or not - well done muinteoiri!).

What is more productive is to put Gaelic into the environment. Gaelic purists may sneer at bilingual signs in Tescos and Waterstones and English subtitles on TG4 but for someone like me with little knowledge of it I find myself watching TG4 occassionaly understanding a few words and phrases, maybe learning a little bit from the subtitling. If we lived in a country that was actually bilingual in the way that Belgium, Switzerland or Canada are bilingual/multilingual that sort of thing would be even more effective.

bonkey

pork99 wrote:

Ok I'm overstating my case to call it a dead language.

And yet when Simu objected to you calling it dead, you had to defend your statement....

So I'm personally responsible for 80 years of this state's failed Irish language policies? Where did I say it's worthless?

You're not personally responsible for all 80 years of it, no. But I do believe that you're part of the reason that the problem remains in the state that it does.

When I grew up, I went to schools in Dublin, Cork, Kerry and Clare. In all four I received vastly differing levels of Irish education. Invariably, where the attitude of "its dead and worthless" prevailed, the standard at which it was taught was atrocious. In the areas where there was a more positive attitude the language was better taught, and taught more successfully. Since leaving schools, I've noticed the same with many of my cousins - and discussed the issue with their parents on more than one occasion where the parents were getting frustrated with the Irish teacher agreeing with the students that Irish was a dead language with no use whatsoever other than satisfying national requirements for certain positions. Strangely, there was - yet again - a correlation between such an atttitude and the kids adopting the same attitude and being subsequently poorer at Irish.

That attitude is not far removed from how most people view it - it's crammed for exams and then forgotten.

And don't you think, therefore, that the first step should be to tackle the attitude? The government can change its policy and educational methods all it likes, but while ppl retain the "doesn't matter other than exams and/or entry requirements" attitude, it won't matter a damn.

If you want to revive Gaelic compulsion will only ever have the opposite effect to that intended.

I've never questioned that. I just believe that exaggerating the demise of the language can only be contriubuting to the problem, and find it strange the number of people who lament the death of a language which isn't dead, but which they are helping to kill by their lamentation.

It's the majority of Irish people like me who are alienated from and/or disinterested in Gaelic who have to be persuaded and won over.

But this is what I don't understand. You admit you'd like to see a bilingual nation. You'd like to see Irish revivied. But given a chance to talk about it, one of the first things you do is denigrate it as being dead....

it is not being excluded from jobs in my own country because I don't know a language which frankly almost might as well be Polish

The jobs that you will be excluded from are typically jobs where you may be required to deal with a member of the public who chooses to speak Irish to you, and where you will be legally at fault for not being able to respond in kind, though.

Seriously...when you join the gardai, you don't get to choose to be a Dublin-based gaurd etc. You go where you're sent...and if they need to be able to send you to the Gaeltacht, then thats where you have to be able to go.

I agree that its not a perfect solution, but simply arguing that "it might be Polish" is a bit unfair. It shows how alienated you are from Irish, but its still unfair. And I'm sure the residents of the Galetacht would be happy to know that you consider them so highly...that their language is as relevant to the people who need to be able to work there as Polish is....

What is more productive is to put Gaelic into the environment.

Really? And you think this would be usedul without whatever small amount of your Irish education you've retained?

Gaelic purists may sneer at bilingual signs in Tescos and Waterstones and English subtitles on TG4 but for someone like me with little knowledge of it I find myself watching TG4 occassionaly understanding a few words and phrases, maybe learning a little bit from the subtitling.

I don't sneer at them at all, but had you not had this education in Irish that you denigrate so much, then none of that stuff would mean anything to you...and yet you want to scrap the educatrion and increase the bits that expose you to what you won't have learned any more.

Oh...and one other important question while I think of it....

If irish was made optional, would you (if/when you become a parent) require your children to learn it in primary school?

jc

pork99

Please don't take my comments about the death of Irish too much to heart - I'm playing devil's advocate. I've been in social situations in Dublin where I'm glad to say the Gaelige was very much alive and kicking (though I could only understand the odd phrase or two myself)

The case I'm trying to make is that the careerist "jobsworth" side of Gaelic is an influence in turning it into a "fossil" language - like medieval church Latin. I think it's harder but in the long run more productive to promote it's use in media, culture, commerce. Isn't it healthier that people might want to learn it to read books, watch films, socialise and so forth in Gaelic? Wouldn't those raesons for learing a language be better than cramming it for some entrance exam for the "permanent and pensionable"?

I would certainly would want my kids taught Irish (if I had any) - it should be a compulsory subject up to Junior Cert and optional to English thereafter. My own objections are not that it was taught to me but that it was taught incompetently. Learning a second language at an early age has great benefits. It could be argued that Irish is not a very "useful" language but that misses the point - it develops language learning skills and should make the "useful" languages easier to acquire later.

Irish people should be better at languages than most English speakers because of this. Unfortunately I don't see much evidence that we are. I wonder if the Irish language requirements for teachers actually hinders language education in schools in that first-language teachers of foreign languages are excluded from the system because of it? (I have no hard evidence for this - it's just a hunch)

I spent less time learning French in school than I did Gaelic and I know more French now. I did not do German in school but I know more German from having worked for a few months in Germany than I know Gaelic. From that I can only conclude that the problem is not that I was uniquely bad at languages but that there was something wrong with the standard of Gaelic teaching at school (I was at the same school most of the time - primary through to Leaving cert)

But to get back nearer the topic how is a requirement for Gaelic it relevant to the Garda? Personally I would thought that a talent for collaring villains would be the main requirment to the exclusion of almost anything else. Certainly from a Dublin perspective with pitched battles in Dunsink Lane etc it doesn't seem like the most relevant requirement.

Out of interest, Bonkey, what do they do in Switzerland? (For I see from your profile that's where you are.) Do Swiss police officers have to be fluent in French, German, Italian AND Romansch?

OfflerCrocGod

simu wrote:

Grr, stop calling my language dead!

"Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead" We on boards write in English and not in Irish. English is the best, most vibrant language in the world, I'm very happy we speak it instead of Irish.

pork99 wrote:

The end result of compulsory Irish in the Leaving, its being mandatory for entry to NUI colleges and the Irish exams for entrance to the public services has been to hasten the demise of Irish as a living language.

Really? I didn't do Irish for my Leaving Cert and I'm in 4th year in UCD....never did a bit of Irish. It seems these "laws" are not really enforced. Thank God for that.

Boggle

luckat wrote:

b) Just how dim do we want our Guards to be? If they can't pass an Irish exam, will they be able to find their feet to put their shoes on in the morning?

Take it then that cos I dont speak Irish (due to living abroad for a few years when I was young) I have to be stupid? Not everyone can speak Irish in this country - alot of people dont even care...!

pork99 wrote:

It is now effectively a dead language

When I was in primary school the logic was simple: I hated Irish cos it was rammed down my throat and I knew that there was never going to be a time in my life when it would prove useful. And I was right - to this day, although I would dearly love to be able to speak the language(culture), I know that it will never be of use to me.