Language Assistants to work in the Gaeltacht Service Towns and Irish Networks as a result of a fund announced by Minister of State Patrick O'Donovan

• he has approved an allocation of up to €508,640 to Glór na nGael to administer the Language Assistants’ Scheme in Gaelscoileanna and Gaelcholáistí located in both the Gaeltacht Service Towns and Irish Language Networks
• it is estimated that 27 schools located in seven Gaeltacht Service Towns and three Irish Language Networks could benefit from this scheme and it will create up to 25 part-time jobs

The Minister of State for the Gaeltacht Patrick O'Donovan announced (today) that he has approved a fund worth €508,640 over a period of two years so that specific schools located in Gaeltacht Service Towns and Irish Language Networks identified under the language planning process will be able to employ a language assistant as part of the language planning process.

The Glór na nGael organisation will be responsible for administering the Scheme on behalf of the department. It is expected that up to 27 schools that operate through Irish in the seven Gaeltacht Service Towns and in the three Irish Networks that have been identified under the language planning process will be able to benefit from this measure which will begin to be implemented immediately. It is estimated that approximately 25 language assistants could be employed under the Scheme when it is in full swing.

134 schools are already benefiting from the department's Language Assistants Scheme from all over the Gaeltacht and 113 language assistants are working under the umbrella of the Scheme which is administered by the two organisations Muintearas and Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne on behalf of the department. The purpose of the Scheme is to support schools to provide additional language enrichment and acquisition opportunities for the attendees of the schools.

Minister of State O’Donovan said:

Lorcán Mac Gabhann, Head of Glór na nGael, said:

In accordance with measures 2.13, 2.14 and 2.17 of the Irish Language Action Plan 2018-2022 (gov.ie - Action Plan 2018-2022 (www.gov.ie)) the departmental fund is being approved under the department's Community and Language Support Programme.

Under the Language Assistants Scheme, financial assistance is provided to further assist schools that fall under its umbrella to provide additional language acquisition and enrichment opportunities for the attendees of those schools.

In addition to the measure mentioned above, the department has taken the following steps in recent years to improve the scheme:

• an allowance of up to €4.039 million was approved in total over a period of 3 years under the Scheme for the Gaeltacht schools last year
• additional teaching hours under the Scheme were allowed for Gaeltacht primary schools with an attendance of more than 100 pupils
• the Role of the Language Assistant booklet was launched officially and will be a source of reference, information and support for language assistants, scheme administrators and Gaeltacht school management and teaching teams
• additional resources worth €1.02 million were approved from the beginning of the 2018/19 school year to enable an additional 32 schools to benefit from the scheme - equivalent to all Gaeltacht schools participating in the Gaeltacht Schools Recognition Scheme. As a result of all this, 134 Gaeltacht schools are benefiting from all these changes compared to 104 schools in 2017/18 and 113 assistants are now employed under the scheme compared to 100 in 2018/19

The following is a list of schools that could benefit from the additional fund.