Garda sergeants back Irish language requirement
New Garda recruits from ethnic communities should have the "basic respect" to learn Irish , a conference heard today.
The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) voted in favour of keeping the language requirement for joining the force.
Sergeant Padraig Dolan from the Galway West division said he had no objection to recruits from new ethnic communities, which Michael McDowell intends to attract by relaxing the language requirement.
“But let them learn the ways of our Irish society, the ways of our Irish culture and community and have at least the minimum respect and support for our own native language,” he said.
He said, in Irish, that the issue had huge relevance in the Gaeltacht areas.
“If there isn’t a minimum standard for every person joining the Garda Siochana, to be able to write down the name and address of a person who wishes to give their name in Irish and to talk to them in some way, I think it would be very unfortunate.”
However, Sergeant Liam Tighe of the Garda National Immigration Bureau said he was concerned that the motion would be seen as exclusive.
“We should be inclusive because we have to police the entire country not just the Irish speakers,” he said.
He warned that Ireland was a rapidly changing country, with hundreds of thousands of new people arriving.
“With them comes an awful lot of good, but also there are, among some of these communities, some criminal elements. And we have to incorporate good people from these communities into the Garda Siochana to help us keep track of the bad that comes too.”
However, ASGI executive member Tony O’Donnell said there had been a historic fear of the language in the force.
“When I joined an Garda Siochana, there was a tendency to see that anyone who spoke the language had subversive leanings and we’d become used to seeing people with such leanings appear in our media and speak the ‘cupla focal’ (few words) and pretend that it makes them more Irish than the rest of us.”
He told the conference that gardai no longer had any reason to fear the language.
He added that the motion allowed time for new recruits to learn Irish before they became full members of the force.
The motion was carried.
