Enda Kenny (Fine Gael)

candidate Dáil election

Please let me know what your party will do for me, my children and grandchildren to fix this country on two points:

1. Put in place a political and government system suitable in size and cost for a democracy of 4.5 million people benchmarked against other small democracies such as Finland, Denmark and New Zealand.

2. Get rid of the massive private bank debts which I and other taxpayers have been made responsible for.

I can accept paying higher taxes to pay off Irish sovereign debt and for efficient public services, but not to pay off private bank debts or for ridiculous pay and pensions to current and retired politicians and senior public sector employees.

Enda how can you stand over Fine Gael´s Irish Language Policy?

Making the Irish language optional will cause irreparable damage to the future of our native tongue.

If it is made optional students will not choose Irish as a subject because:
1- Languages are harder subjects to study for the Leaving Cert
2- There are 2 papers in Irish- 7.5 hours v 2-3 hours (most other subjects)
3- Irish would have to compete with other subjects for third level (eg biology for medicine)
4- Irish would no longer be available in every school
5- Students will be deterred from studying Irish from Primary school onwards

Languages have been optional for the GCSE in England since 2001.The amount of students studying languages has fallen from 78% to 44%. This scenario will be even worse in Ireland.

The course needs to be revamped and revitalised not made optional.