If Maltese is an EU language, why not Irish?

I AM writing in response to Jim Yates’ letter headlined ‘Irish language will never be the talk of Europe’ (Irish Examiner, June 15).

Mr Yates complains about the amount of money which will be spent employing Irish speakers as translators and in publishing European treaties and documents in Irish because he regards the language as a dead tongue belonging only to fanatics and academics.

Yet Mr Yates makes no objection to the status of Maltese as a ‘working language’ of the EU, even though there are more people speaking Irish than Maltese.