should foreign gardai speak Irish?

KnowItAll

Now that they are trying to bring in foreign Gardai, should those Gardai have to speak Irish? I believe they should have to speak Irish if they want to join the Gardai or p*** off home!

tribulus

i'd be more concerned about their ability as a garda/law enforcer than their fluency in a language that's not in everyday use. (except gaeltacht areas of course :rolleyes: )

Reaver772

The only reason they should have to speak irish is if they're working in the gaeltacht.

tribulus

*snap* !!

Nightwish

ok, dunno if it was meant to sound like that but it came across as a little racist. this will stir up the irish debate again-as in is it relevant or not. Personally recruiting foreign Gardai should only happen if there arent enough applicants to fill places in Templemore(this happens in a lot of other ares such as nurses/doctors/teachers), which AFAIK, hasnt happened anytime recently.
If the Gardai need to find someway to engage with the foreign nationals in this country then make it necessary that applicants to Templemore have 1 other language other than English (not necessarily Irish)

Our man in Havana

Reaver772 wrote:

The only reason they should have to speak irish is if they're working in the gaeltacht.

Nope, they should be made learn Irish. Irish is the offical langauge, I can demand that the organs of the state, gardai included address me in Irish.

astec123

That is a very poor view, and I bet you are one of the people that say that the gardai do nothing, and when they try to get more officers on the beat you smack them back down in what I would clearly say is a racial comment. Looking at todays youth I can safely say too that most of them are patriotic but in the same stance dont know the language at all or say that they should not have to learn it or know it. How can you be patriotic if you refuse to support your own language. Sorry but this is a sad reflection on modern day Ireland as a whole.

Also IMHO Irish would be better served in making it promoted rather than forced on them. I would be honoured to think that out of their own support for the nation (I am a foreigner myself) that they would learn the language. Irish promotion is all wrong at the moment and to be truthful if the methods dont improve it will disappear forever.

Rb

I'd agree with the original post, its our language, its always been a requirement to have Irish when joining the gardai and so it should stay, regardless of "how relevant it is" today.

Victor

The need for gardaí to speak other minority languages is currently far more important than their need to speak Irish.

During the start of the Gama investigation, the investigators needed to rely on Gama's translators. :rolleyes:

Sparky

im not racist but i dont like this idea of an indian guard pulling me over to hand me the law while me trying to understand a word of english from his mouth because of his indian accent.
unless the ratios are ok like 1:20
remember im not racist its just my opinion.
oh and they better learn irish, as an irish citizen i can request a gaurd to talk to me, as gaeilge.
so they better learn it.

Flukey

Knowitall is trying to flame again.

Anyhow, we need more Chinese, Russian, Romanian etc. etc. speakers in the Gardaí. So opening up recruitment in this way is a good thing. It'll help the non-nationals who deal with the Gardaí to integrate and it will help integration by letting non-nationals join the Gardaí.

iguana

One of the main reasons to have non-national Gardai is that there are more and more non-national residents in Ireland. This means that there are more languages being spoken in the country.

In Dublin it is far more useful to have a number of Gardai who speak Cantonese, for example, than it is to have 100% who speak Irish. However I don't think that only non-nationals should be exempted from Irish. If there must be a language requirment it should be something like a certain level of Irish or other language in use in the country.

To the mods: I wonder if this thread should perhaps be moved to Humanities?

astec123

@ sparky. My neighbour is a guard herself and can barely string a sentence together in it. So the idea that they can speak irish is crap. Go up to most of them and they would not be able to. After their education they loose all memory of it. I am not saying to stop them knowing it but saying that if a minority person was joining then the requirement would be they have to have the skills to do the job, not a piece of paper saying they can speak irish at an ordinary level C3. Ireland is obsessed with qualifications, not the aptitudes of people.

Our man in Havana

Sparky S wrote:

oh and they better learn irish, as an irish citizen i can request a gaurd to talk to me, as gaeilge.
so they better learn it.

Amen Brother!

KnowItAll

Sparky_S wrote:

im not racist but i dont like this idea of an indian guard pulling me over to hand me the law while me trying to understand a word of english from his mouth because of his indian accent.

I'd agree with that. Maybe they should learn English too!

Scraggs

They should be fluent in english and others should be able to comprehend what they are saying!
I dont think its neccessary for them to learn Irish if they are not native irish person un less of course working in a gaeltacht.
It would be useful to have more gardaí who can speak languges like chinese/russian/polish etc. as it would save a lot of time, energy and resources in the long term [eg.money and time to find a translator/interpreter] and the rising number of people who have english as their second+ language

Rb

KnowItAll wrote:

I'd agree with that. Maybe they should learn English too!

Lmao!

DonkeyStyle \o/

IMO, the whole Irish language requirement is a load of arse anyway and dropping it would be a good move, not only for forign nationals, but for Irish people aswell.
The far more pressing issue is their fluency of English... and equally important, their accent... I've met some forigners that have excellent English, but I still can't understand a fukking word they're saying because they have such rubbish pronunciation.

If you're uncomfortable about having someone from Abu-Na-Glibba-Brijar-Achbad pulling you over, just say it... don't disguise it behind some sort of bullshít patriotism in the form of love for an ancient language.
At the same time, I don't agree that the rules should be changed for the sole purpose of diversifying the police force in order to score brownie points.
It wasn't changed for all the Irish people who couldn't speak Irish... so why drop it now?
It all seems like such a pathetic PR exercise.
Drop Irish because it's a bullshít requirement in the first place, not because you want to look all hip and modern with an ethnically diverse police force.

Guy:Incognito

Irish shouldnt be a requirment for anyone joining the Gards, never mind foreigners. Anyone who decides to demand to converse with a gard in Irish should be done for wasting police time. You can be damn sure that if there was a genuine emergency or a member of their family was in danger and the gard didnt speak Irish, they wouldnt sit their and demand their right to converse in Irish. The gards have better things to do with their time than learn Irish. Seeing as the vast majority of the country speak English as their main language (is there anyone left who only speak Irish?) why shouldnt the people in the gealtacht be made speak English? or would that be unfair to the people in the Gaeltacht? works boths ways.


The police force in England dont have to be able to converse with Indian or Pakistani people in their own language and theres more of them in ENgland than Irish speakers here.

Irish shouldnt be a nessecity for any job as everyone in the country speaks fluent English so theres no reason for it to be nessecary other than to inconveniece.

Dave!

I think they should have to learn it if other Gardaí have to... Why should they be exempt? Some people are crap at Irish yet force themselves to at least be decent at it, in order to become teachers, Gardaí, etc., so it's not that much of a burden. It's not a terribly difficult language to learn if it's taught well, and there's any number of courses out there I'm sure.

BrokenArrows

I do not believe that anyone should need an understanding of irish to join the police force whether they be irish or foreign.

If the gov wants the police force to speak basic irish they should include this as part of the training.

The americans i believe teach their police force to speak spanish but it is not a requirment on joining the force.

As for the gaeltacht speaking irish is oviously necessary but who would apply for a gardai job in the gaeltacht if they could not speak it and as for gardai getting transfered to the irish speaking areas, that goes back to the training bit.

I have never encountered a officer that i could not understand but its ovious that the person has to be able to speak proper english.

I dont think that anyone can be refused from joining the gardai for having a strong accent. If you were to do that then you would not be able to hire all those people from in the bog lands of ireland that you cannot understand a word of and just have to assume are speaking some form of english or another.

Anyway thats my rant over for the moment.

Farls

Course they should have to learn it...its the law right? If i say to a garda "Nil is agam bearla...as gaeilge le do thoil" they should be able to say it to me in irish

btw i know my irish is terrible but thats my right!

pred racer

Yes any police type person should be able to speak the national language of the country they serve in!

amacachi

i would be more worried about the current gardaí struggling with the basics of english than an immigrant struggling with irish.

Guy:Incognito

pred racer wrote:

Yes any police type person should be able to speak the national language of the country they serve in!

They do, thats why they can all speak English.

Dave!

^
Irish is the national language.

Mr.Nice Guy

They should be able to speak Irish. Imagine some kid from the Gaeltacht area is up in Dublin with his/her parents and gets lost and runs up to a Guard looking for help and the Guard looks at him/her not having a clue what is being said!

Unlikely scenario, but entirely possible under this scheme. If we're forced to learn the language in school then the people who are there to protect us should have to learn it too!

Our man in Havana

BUNREACHT NA h&#201 wrote: »

Article 8

1. The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.



2. The English language is recognised as a second official language.



3. Provision may, however, be made by law for the exclusive use of either of the said languages for any one or more official purposes, either throughout the State or in any part thereof.

So there.

djmarkus

Stekelly wrote:

They do, thats why they can all speak English.

And some Non-National Dublin bus drivers have exceptionally bad English, it’s very off putting for to be standing there trying to make out what he/she's trying to say, now the problem would be personified in a law enforcement role.

And i don’t like Irish in particular but i like to see Ireland’s culture stay intact, and the Irish language is a big part of it so i think it should stay compulsory.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

They should be able to speak Irish. Imagine some kid from the Gaeltacht area is up in Dublin with his/her parents and gets lost and runs up to a Guard looking for help and the Guard looks at him/her not having a clue what is being said!

The parents should have better prepared their kid for life in the real world instead of living in a fantasy land where Irish is spoken.
What ever happened to reciting prayers in latin? ... they should bring that back, it's part of our culture after all. :rolleyes:

Mr.Nice Guy

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

The parents should have better prepared their kid for life in the real world instead of living in a fantasy land where Irish is spoken.

Yes, people who speak Irish are from a fantasy land. It all makes sense now. When I had a conversation in Irish for my Oral exam, the Examiner must have really been a magic leprechaun! I didn't know leprechauns wore suits and carried around tape recorders...

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

What ever happened to reciting prayers in latin? ... they should bring that back, it's part of our culture after all. :rolleyes:

Yeah that's a huge part of our culture...what with us being Romans and all. :rolleyes:

MrPinK

djmarkus wrote:

And some Non-National Dublin bus drivers have exceptionally bad English, it’s very off putting for to be standing there trying to make out what he/she's trying to say, now the problem would be personified in a law enforcement role.

Making non-nationals learn Irish isn't going to help that at all. Do you think they'd be any better at Irish than English?

djmarkus

That wasn't my argument, my argument was that nobody should be employed into a national public service role without having a good grasp of the language that is most spoken for that nation, for us english.

My Argument for keeping irish is stated

And i don’t like Irish in particular but i like to see Ireland’s culture stay intact, and the Irish language is a big part of it so i think it should stay compulsory.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

When I had a conversation in Irish for my Oral exam, the Examiner must have really been a magic leprechaun!

Could he not speak English?
Isn't it great though, that the best example you have of speaking Irish to someone is in a school exam. :rolleyes:
Would you raise a kid to speak only Irish and not even enough English to be able to tell someone that they're lost? ... That'd be gross neglect IMO.

what with us being Romans and all.

Wow, we're Romans now? Excellent stuff... makes you wonder why we speak Irish at all.
If you'd used that line on a nun back in the day, you'd get fifty lashes.
Do your research before you get a thick ear and a note to your parents.

jill_valentine

Pff. Irish is the national language, it says so here, so there! Please. I can't imagine there's a single person on earth who can communicate only in Irish. Like it or not, English is the practical language and universal vernacular of Ireland. It is of absolutely no practical use to the Gardai, none whatsoever. Placing a greater value on the candidates ability to speak a functionally redundant language than on their merit as a keeper of the peace is not the best way to produce the best police force we can. It's mule headed stubborness, and it's a policy that severely restricts the forces credibility among minorities. Would you trust a police force that doesn't seem to have a single member of your ethnic group?

Fighting for the Irish requirement in the 21st century - just because you can - is almost childish. If the people don't speak it, why should their police force?

jezza

You can actually demand your interview/arrest in irish as its your national language. I think Irish language should be compulsary. What good be having german when/if you try and arrest some one who starts speaking gaeilge, I mean you cant really tell them to shut up and speak english.
Also, my best friends dad is a solicitor and her sisters boyf is a prof in UCG, who had lots of parking fines or speeding fines, i cant remember which, but Donal got him out of it because the fine wasnt written in the national language, as I said he got away with it, and the last few fines he got/anyone got in that area was actually in Irish.
So yes I think that they should keep the Irish language, however "useless" it might seem.

DonkeyStyle \o/

jezza wrote:

What good be having german when/if you try and arrest some one who starts speaking gaeilge, I mean you cant really tell them to shut up and speak english.

And what good is Irish if you arrest someone who can only speak French?
What do you do? You get an interpreter.
Can we not detain people because they don't understand the officers language? I think I see a huge legal loophole here.

Also, my best friends dad is a solicitor and her sisters boyf is a prof in UCG, who had lots of parking fines or speeding fines, i cant remember which, but Donal got him out of it because the fine wasnt written in the national language, as I said he got away with it, and the last few fines he got/anyone got in that area was actually in Irish.
So yes I think that they should keep the Irish language, however "useless" it might seem.

Yeah, good reasoning there... Irish is usefull because it lets speeding yuppies off on technicalities, way to make your point.

Hobbes

DaveMcG wrote:

^
Irish is the national language.

It is also in the minority vs other languages. Unless they make a push to force it on people I don't see why it should be enforced on a gardai. I wonder how many Gardai nowdays speak Irish and were born in Ireland.

Malorkus

Sparky_S wrote:

im not racist but i dont like this idea of an indian guard pulling me over to hand me the law while me trying to understand a word of english from his mouth because of his indian accent.
unless the ratios are ok like 1:20
remember im not racist its just my opinion.
oh and they better learn irish, as an irish citizen i can request a gaurd to talk to me, as gaeilge.
so they better learn it.

I don't think I like the idea of being pulled over by an Indian garda - period. It'd just be wierd getting talked down to by some paki in my own country - I can just picture the hairy guy with an Apu accent in a Garda uniform - it just looks wrong. Or even worse - imagine getting a bollocking from a French guy!

CJhaughey

Malorkus wrote:

I don't think I like the idea of being pulled over by an Indian garda - period. It'd just be wierd getting talked down to by some paki in my own country - I can just picture the hairy guy with an Apu accent in a Garda uniform - it just looks wrong. Or even worse - imagine getting a bollocking from a French guy!

Why would it be weird? because you feel that you are superior to a foreign born garda?Because of his skin colour? please elaborate or you may be called a racist.

RainyDay

Scraggs wrote:

They should be fluent in english and others should be able to comprehend what they are saying!

How would this requirement impact the many Gardai with 2-foot-thick Kerry accents?

horseflesh

jill_valentine wrote:

Pff. Irish is the national language, it says so here, so there! Please. I can't imagine there's a single person on earth who can communicate only in Irish. Like it or not, English is the practical language and universal vernacular of Ireland. It is of absolutely no practical use to the Gardai, none whatsoever. Placing a greater value on the candidates ability to speak a functionally redundant language than on their merit as a keeper of the peace is not the best way to produce the best police force we can. It's mule headed stubborness, and it's a policy that severely restricts the forces credibility among minorities. Would you trust a police force that doesn't seem to have a single member of your ethnic group?

Fighting for the Irish requirement in the 21st century - just because you can - is almost childish. If the people don't speak it, why should their police force?

Well said, you practically took the words out of my mouth.

So, technically Irish might be the “national” language but in reality it is FAR from being our first language. Besides English, at least Chinese (Mandarin and/or Cantonese) and Polish would be the first language for more people than Irish is. I’m not suggesting that Chinese or Polish should be introduced as a language for the Gardai, but I do strongly think that Irish should be dropped as a compulsory requirement.
I mean seriously, how many Irish people genuinely wouldn’t be able to converse with a Garda in English?? I would say practically none, in fact I would be surprised if there were any. Anyone “demanding” to be addressed in Irish is being spiteful and very petty. People asserting these sort of “rights” piss me off and is one of the things wrong with this Banana Republic of ours. Why do so many people think that society owes them something; the “what’s in it for me?” brigade. Typical Irish small-mindedness.

Forget the romantic ideals of the Irish language, it’s all but dead and buried, and it’s the fault of successive governments for failing to promote it and teach it to children properly.


So to answer the original question; no, foreign Gardai should not be required to be able to speak Irish, but neither should Irish Gardai.


Edit:I forget to say this. To the person condoning the use of a loophole concerning the Irish language to get out of speeding fines; shame on you and your parasite solicitor friend.

Dyr

I find the idea that the gardai should be accomodating immigrants ridiculous. There are two languages in this country, irish and english. The State should be under no obligation to provide any service for non-nationals who cant be arsed to learn one of them. Of course we now have whole communities in this country that the gardai have no interface with but hey, isnt that the beauty of multiculturalism?? lucky us.

Take a look at countries where non nationals can become cops, its usually because its a badly paid career with little benefits, something that cant be said of the gardai. We have no shortage of irish applicants to templemore so why should we have postive discrimination for non nationals?

Malorkus

CJhaughey wrote:

Why would it be weird? because you feel that you are superior to a foreign born garda?Because of his skin colour? please elaborate or you may be called a racist.

1) Because it has never happened before and I can't picture it.
2) Yes. I am superior to most peope - regardless of where they were born.
3) No - because he's not Irish, and Gardai enforcing Irish laws unto Irish citizens should be Irish born IMO (note, I said "IMO" before any spazmos misquote me). I never said anything about skin colour. Wanna share what's on your mind?

horseflesh

Malorkus wrote:

I never said anything about skin colour. Wanna share what's on your mind?

What's on yours???
You're the one talking about "some Paki". But I bet you're not a racist right??

seamus

Malorkus wrote:

I don't think I like the idea of being pulled over by an Indian garda - period. It'd just be wierd getting talked down to by some paki in my own country - I can just picture the hairy guy with an Apu accent in a Garda uniform - it just looks wrong. Or even worse - imagine getting a bollocking from a French guy!

Why, because this is "your country"? Sweet Jesus people, if they're suitably qualified what ****ing difference does their skin color or accent make? Go down to Kerry and get pulled over by a Garda with an accent far worse than Nigerian or Indian, and big red arms on him, and tell me how it's any different. :rolleyes:

Morons. No matter what you say, promoting "This job is only for Irish people" elitism is racism in another guise.

Non-national Gardai will go through exactly the same training, and will have to fulfill exactly the same criteria as Irish Gardai.

My only worry is that a Pakistani, or particularly a Nigerian or Chinese Garda simply won't get any respect, particularly in the rougher areas of the country where Irish Gardai barley get any respect.

It's something that's sorely needed. A lot of the time, the Gardai will choose a female Garda to go in and talk to an hysterical woman, to give them some common ground. Similarly, it will do wonders for the Gardai if they can send in a Nigerian or Chinese Garda to deal with Nigerian or Chinese people.

Dave

I can't believe the closed mindedness of some people here. Just because you say "I'm not a racist by the way" doesn't actually mean you're not one.

Gazza22

I agree with the above, you can't just make a racist remark and then try and accept no liabilty for that remark...

Once somebody has fulfilled the Garda requirements, they have a right to become a garda regardless of their nationality. As for the Irish language in the Garda programme, scrap it, it's only used in the Gaeltacht and is pretty much useless outside those boundaries.

is_that_so

jezza wrote:

You can actually demand your interview/arrest in irish as its your national language. I think Irish language should be compulsary.

AFAIK You can also demand to have a case heard in Irish in court. That could be problematic. Personally I have no progblem with the original question. I'm reminded of the Jason Sherlock minority ad.

BuffyBot

Now that they are trying to bring in foreign Gardai, should those Gardai have to speak Irish? I believe they should have to speak Irish if they want to join the Gardai or p*** off home!

Malorkus wrote:

1) Because it has never happened before and I can't picture it.
2) Yes. I am superior to most peope - regardless of where they were born.
3) No - because he's not Irish, and Gardai enforcing Irish laws unto Irish citizens should be Irish born IMO (note, I said "IMO" before any spazmos misquote me). I never said anything about skin colour. Wanna share what's on your mind?

The village of Stormfront is missing it's idiots, I see.

DublinWriter

The whole 'Irish language' debate is really the Pragmatists vs the Idealists.

In an ideal world, we would all be fluent in Irish because of the 14+ years we spent in school learning the language, so therefore all Guards should be able to speak Irish.

However, as Irish is thought so badly in our educational system, only 5% of the population are fluent Irish speakers, so realistically, no, Guards shouldn't have to speak Irish.

I have a couple of friends in the Guards and most can't speak Irish fluently. The Irish language fluency test is a short oral test and pretty easy to get a 40% pass in.

The real question here should be "Why do we spend 14 years in school learning Irish and come out of it barely able to ask permission to go to the toilet?". That's the question the Idealists should be really addressing.

Meanwhile in the real world, we are seeing more and more crime related to ethnic minories in this country and we need a police force more reflective of our current ethnic mix in order to tackle this. Witness the current rise in Chinese gang violence around Dublin and the high levels of prostitution amoung the Romanian community.

Considering that we as Irish people couldn't tell our own language from a hole in the ground, it's unfair of us to expect people from other communities who choose to live and work here to be fluent in Irish.

It's a small-minded arguement for small-minded, insular people.