Kenny under fire for language policy

FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny came under heavy pressure over his party’s controversial Irish-language policy in the first three-way debate of the election campaign on TG4 last night.

Fine Gael has proposed abolishing Irish as a compulsory subject in the Leaving Certificate, believing this could help the language flourish as it would attract passionate students.

But Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and his Labour counterpart Eamon Gilmore claimed such a policy would destroy the language and wreak havoc on the economies of the Gaeltacht areas.