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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar receives his Certificate in Professional Irish from the Irish Language Commissioner, Rónán Ó Domhnaill

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was among 70 people presented with the Certificate in Professional Irish at an event held last night in the Mansion House.

Speaking in Irish, the Taoiseach said:

I made a decision at the beginning of the year to undertake the Certificate in Professional Irish because I wanted to improve my standard of Irish. I studied the language at school, of course, but like a lot of people in this country I haven’t had many opportunities to use it since then and was therefore out of practice. As I said in the Dáil several months ago, I have a great love for our national language, and for the past few years I’ve made a great effort to improve my Irish.

The Irish Language Commissioner Rónán Ó Domhnaill, who presented the certificate to the Taoiseach and the other recipients, congratulated Mr Varadkar on completing the course and for leading by example as regards the language.

Éamonn Ó Dónaill, Gaelchultúr’s Director of Education said:

It’s psychologically important for the Irish language community to have a Taoiseach in charge of the country who has respect for the language – it will add greatly to the status of the language to have such a powerful and influential figure taking such an interest in it.