asked the Minister for Education if he is aware that it was stated in a booklet entitled Sport in Ireland published by the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1979 under the chapter entitled “Physical Education in Ireland” that a directive to teach physical education through the medium of the Irish language was largely responsible for the total elimination of physical education from Irish primary schools during the early twenties; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Physical Education.
19.
This booklet was not published under the auspices of my Department. In the circumstances, I do not consider that it would be either necessary or appropriate that I should be required to comment on its alleged contents.
Would the Minister of State not agree that it was published by a Department of Government and is he now removing himself from the booklet, as it were, and saying that the allegations in it in respect of the teaching of physical education are wrong?
That is what the Deputy has indicated. If any sportsman writes a booklet for my Department, I do not think I should be required to accept responsibility for the contents or either to agree or disagree with them.
Has the Minister seen the booklet and has he read the section in question?
Yes. I refer in my reply to the alleged contents of the publication. What appears in the booklet is different from what Deputy Collins alleges. The section reads that the directive to teach physical education through the Irish language, plus the optional nature of the subject, was largely responsible. In his question the Deputy did not make any reference to the fact of the subject being optional.
Is the Minister in agreement with the statement that he has just read?
As I have said, any sportsman is entitled to say or to write anything he wishes but the Minister does not consider himself obliged to refer back to the time when a Cumann na nGaedheal Government, in their concern for the Irish language, correctly exhorted all teachers to teach any subject through the medium of Irish where that was possible and where the competence of the teacher to deliver the lesson and the competence of the child to assimilate it would be provided for.
A final supplementary, please.
If that is so, is it not peculiar that a Department of State should allow to be published an article that gives the impression that because physical education was taught through the medium of Irish, it declined?
I would recoil from the type of censorship that the Deputy is advocating.