Lesson may end in legal action

After 15 years, and much worry and expense for the many primary teachers affected, the Department of Education may have at last learned its lesson.

For that length of time it insisted, maybe illegally, that thousands of teachers trained outside Ireland take a notoriously difficult examination in the Irish language, although an easier option was available to them.

The regulations in 1991 gave affect to an EU directive which allowed foreign-qualified teachers to take an adaptation course during which the Irish language requirement for registration can be met.