Energy savings, the ESB and Irish language

jimmmy

I am not sure if this is the correct forum or not. Basically, the postman has dropped a 16 page full colour book from the ESB through the letterbox , on energy saving/ energy efficient lighting. The thing is exactly half the book is in Irish. That makes approx 12 million of pages of Irish language the ESB is printing and distributing around the country....if the ESB wants us to save energy / preserve natural resources ( ink + paper, + oil used in distribution ) perhaps they should look closer to home ? Why is half the book duplicated ? How much money is wasted by the government / semi-states doubling the amount of printed matter ?

mike65

From IT

Ninety-three per cent of those taking part in a Statewide survey wish to have Irish revived or preserved, according to a report launched yesterday by Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív.

So there we are...read booklets on the importance of gas fire mantainence 'as gaeilge' and it'll be saved.

snubbleste

I agree OP, the booklet should not be duplicated and should be half as light and be entirely as gaeilge.

simu

More to the point - why do they have to keep sending little booklets out month after month? They very rarely contain new information. You can get far more info on the internet anyways and for those who don't use it, newspapers have done articles on the same topic about a million times. Govt agencies seem to spend an awful lot of effort on producing booklets full of info everyone either already knows or people don't care to know.

jimmmy

simu wrote: »

Govt agencies seem to spend an awful lot of effort on producing booklets full of info everyone either already knows or people don't care to know.

and how many hundreds of millions have been wasted on Irish language printing which nobody reads ? How many trees felled / tons of ink used ? How many postmens back broken ?

Fratton Fred

snubbleste wrote: »

I agree OP, the booklet should not be duplicated and should be half as light and be entirely as gaeilge.

lets face it, 99% of people are going to throw it straight into the bin without reading it, so it could be printed in Latin for what it's worth.

simu

jimmmy wrote: »

and how many hundreds of millions have been wasted on Irish language printing which nobody reads ? How many trees felled / tons of ink used ? How many postmens back broken ?

Poor suffering postmen being killed by the Irish language.

These translations are being done more to ease the guilt of the majority of Irish people who love the idea of the language but don't actually want to learn or speak it rather than for the benefit of people who actually speak Irish btw.

Múinteoir

jimmmy wrote: »

and how many hundreds of millions have been wasted on Irish language printing which nobody reads ?

I can only imagine the rock-solid impirical evidence you use to back this up. Have you some genuine data/reports to back that up, or is it just the anecdotal evidence of so many Irish-language belittlers:

I don't read it = nobody else reads it

Self-absorbed much?

jimmmy

Fratton Fred wrote: »

lets face it, 99% of people are going to throw it straight into the bin without reading it, so it could be printed in Latin for what it's worth.

I agree there ...and then translating it in to the Irish language.... point 01 of 1% ? lol lol lol Shure who ever saw anyone even buying an Irish language newspaper or magazine ....I have over the decades been in every county in Ireland and never heard any Irish been spoken never mind saw any Irish language newspapers or magazines. That shows the level of demand for it. Ah but we have plenty of money in this country so its ok to spend 1612 million euro trying to promote / translate / print everything in to Irish.

silverharp

Múinteoir wrote: »

I can only imagine the rock-solid impirical evidence you use to back this up. Have you some genuine data/reports to back that up, or is it just the anecdotal evidence of so many Irish-language belittlers:

I don't read it = nobody else reads it

Self-absorbed much?

http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/Final%20Principal%20Demographic%20Results%202006.pdf

go to page 80 , roughly 120K people over the age of 20 claim to use Irish on at least a weekly basis. so guessing that half the people read any particular document that comes in the door and of them say half again think this is an opportunity to read the irish version then I would say 30,000 might be your target audience in reality I would say lower again

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

BroomBurner

If a government booklet came through the door completely in English, there would be a moaning thread about the loss of the Irish language. :rolleyes:

cavedave

Múinteoir

I can only imagine the rock-solid impirical evidence you use to back this up. Have you some genuine data/reports to back that up, or is it just the anecdotal evidence of so many Irish-language belittlers:

I don't read it = nobody else reads it

Self-absorbed much?

Ok lets try find some evidence. Does anyone have figures for number of irish language books versus English language books sold in ireland per year? preferably adult books.

If you take one harry Harry Potter book

The bookseller said the 25,000-print run commissioned by UK publisher Bloomsbury was remarkable for an Irish-language copy.

This article seems to imply that harry potter was about 12.5% of Irish book sales. So roughly 200,000 Irish language books are bought a year?

Here is a good article

So of our 2000-10,000 (conservative) titles released in ireland per year, fewer than 200 are in Irish. Surely this says something?

The second thing is that nearly 40% are childrens books. Given that the king of Childrens books, the UK, boasts no more than 10%, the figure for Irish is extraordinary

silverharp

cavedave wrote: »

Ok lets try find some evidence. Does anyone have figures for number of irish language books versus English language books sold in ireland per year? preferably adult books.

If you take one harry Harry Potter book

This article seems to imply that harry potter was about 12.5% of Irish book sales. So roughly 200,000 Irish language books are bought a year?

Here is a good article

You would have to figure out how many adults compared to kids buy Irish books? and then how many Irish books does the averge Irish speaker buy to get an idea of the active numbers not in education?

cavedave

ok go with the figures I have given (which are open to correction) 200000 books. 40% are for children so 120000 are read by Adults. According to the census this would be about one book per year per person who regularly speak it. 4 books a year seems reasonable for an actual person who really uses the language. So i estimate figure of 30,000 are actually reading.

That would be about 1 in a 100 adults are potential audience.

The tv ratings give tg4 about 5% here. Considering the amount of output that is actually in Irish this puts regular users in the <2% figure I would reckon.

weiss

Are those of you who want to abolish the Irish language ashamed of your identity?

Do you identify more with English or US culture?

I don't see any point in publishing all these leaflets in Irish either, atleast not for everyone.

But there are people in this country that still use Irish everyday.

Can you try appreciate this? try to respect those that want to keep the language alive?

cavedave

weiss Are those of you who want to abolish the Irish language ashamed of your identity?

I cannot speak for those people as I do not share that view

Do you identify more with English or US culture?

Tough question. I do like the Brehon law gaelic system. It is not generally palatable though. For example murder is punishable by a fine to the family of the victim.

But there are people in this country that still use Irish everyday.

There are about 2% as far as I have figured

Can you try appreciate this? try to respect those that want to keep the language alive?

Yes I can for alterity reasons. Ok I will and do. By respect do you mean give money to people who speak Irish and if so why?

weiss

How do you want me to respond to that gibberish cavedave?

jank

Oh yes!! Another "Lets bash the Irish Language thread!"

No other country in the world have this inferiority complex about their own language. A better debate is to ask why do we Irish people have such an inferiority complex about their own culture. Seriously, why do we do it?

I agree that resources in this case aren't best used and would welcome any debate in the view that would help out the Irish Language. However, Jimmy I don't think you care too much about ESB's use of resources in this instance and the you have an other motive. I didn't see you complain much when ESB awarded themselves a pay rise a few months back;)

By the way does anyone find it ironic that someone (The OP) who doesn't call himself Irish, complains about the waste of "Irish tax payers" resources on the Irish language?:pac:

jimmmy

jank wrote: »

Oh yes!! Another "Lets bash the Irish Language thread!"

Its not, its about the waste of hundreds of millions of euros of money, plus the waste of natural resources.

jank wrote: »

No other country in the world have this inferiority complex about their own language.

Its not an "inferiority complex" when so much is spent on a language so few use.

jank wrote: »

However, Jimmy I don't think you care too much about ESB's use of resources in this instance and the you have an other motive. I didn't see you complain much when ESB awarded themselves a pay rise a few months back;)

I did actually, the ESB pay themselves an average of over 70k per year per worker....thats almost as much as many Prime Minister around the world pay themselves ( eg the p.m. of New Zealand ). We have the second most expensive electricity in Europe and no wonder when the ESB waste our money.

jank wrote: »

By the way does anyone find it ironic that someone (The OP) who doesn't call himself Irish,

I never said that ....where did I not call myself Irish ?

jank wrote: »

complains about the waste of "Irish tax payers" resources on the Irish language?:pac:

Whats Ironic about it, when Irish was drummed in to me at school , and when I have paid tax all my life ?

Sleipnir

BroomBurner wrote: »

If a government booklet came through the door completely in English, there would be a moaning thread about the loss of the Irish language. :rolleyes:

I think you'd probably find that most people wouldn't notice that the Irish version wasn't there.

jimmmy

cavedave wrote: »

Ok lets try find some evidence. Does anyone have figures for number of irish language books versus English language books sold in ireland per year? preferably adult books.
If you take one harry Harry Potter book
This article seems to imply that harry potter was about 12.5% of Irish book sales. So roughly 200,000 Irish language books are bought a year?

Flawed logic. I know of one Irish teacher who made all her class buy the Harry Potter book in Irish. How many Irish language books or newspapers or magazines are voluntarily bought each year ? I asked a few bookshops, newsagents etc and they said negligible.

cavedave

jimmmy your right. If you can come up with a better figure that would be great. Even with the figure I've given your still only talking about 1-2% of the adult population being regular readers of Irish.

Daithinski

jimmmy wrote: »

I am not sure if this is the correct forum or not. Basically, the postman has dropped a 16 page full colour book from the ESB through the letterbox , on energy saving/ energy efficient lighting. The thing is exactly half the book is in Irish. That makes approx 12 million of pages of Irish language the ESB is printing and distributing around the country....if the ESB wants us to save energy / preserve natural resources ( ink + paper, + oil used in distribution ) perhaps they should look closer to home ? Why is half the book duplicated ? How much money is wasted by the government / semi-states doubling the amount of printed matter ?

I agree that this is a waste.

They should only print the Irish section.:P

Daithinski

Sleipnir wrote: »

I think you'd probably find that most people wouldn't notice that the Irish version wasn't there.

Probably most people would bin the brochure without reading the english or irish verison. I know I would.

If the information really has to be out out there, would it not make more sense to put info in a newspaper advert or something??

There is no need for a Fancy Dan glossy brochure.

BTW This is turning into a bit of an "Irish is bleedin' stewpid" post.

Theres much bigger things to be getting all hot under the collar about at the moment....

jank

jimmmy wrote: »

Its not, its about the waste of hundreds of millions of euros of money, plus the waste of natural resources.

Are you talking about the ESB now or just the Irish Language overall? I doubt the publication of some leaflets cost us hundreds of millions of euros. But dont let that get in the way of your agenda.

jimmmy wrote: »

Its not an "inferiority complex" when so much is spent on a language so few use.

Oh but yes, it is and you are just proving it by every line you type.

jimmmy wrote: »

I did actually, the ESB pay themselves an average of over 70k per year per worker....thats almost as much as many Prime Minister around the world pay themselves ( eg the p.m. of New Zealand ). We have the second most expensive electricity in Europe and no wonder when the ESB waste our money.

So why raise a seperate topic about this when much more radical overhaul is needed of semi-state organisations. I agree that they pay themselves too much but I think you are confused in which battle to fight which leads me to conclude that your battle is with the Irish Language.

jimmmy wrote: »

I never said that ....where did I not call myself Irish ?

I asked you a few times and I never heard an answer which led me to conclude that you didnt think of yourself Irish. So are you?

jimmmy wrote: »

Whats Ironic about it, when Irish was drummed in to me at school , and when I have paid tax all my life ?

Yet I dont think you think of yourself as Irish. Many a subject was drummed into me at school yet I dont give out about it as if my civil rights were violated.

jank

Daithinski wrote: »

Probably most people would bin the brochure without reading the english or irish verison. I know I would.

If the information really has to be out out there, would it not make more sense to put info in a newspaper advert or something??

There is no need for a Fancy Dan glossy brochure.

BTW This is turning into a bit of an "Irish is bleedin' stewpid" post.

Theres much bigger things to be getting all hot under the collar about at the moment....

I agree. Much more important issues to be discussing. IMO the thing should be online, in both languages. This thread is a waste of time.

jimmmy

jank wrote: »

I asked you a few times and I never heard an answer which led me to conclude that you didnt think of yourself Irish. So are you?

You never asked me before what nationality I am, and its none of your business. Its not relevant. What difference to you is it if I have a "Pas" ( passport ) or not ?

The point is, duplicating everything is costing the government - you and I as taxpayers - hundreds of millions in translating everything in to Irish, in additional printing and signage costs, and trying to "promote" the language. Given the state of our public finances - and my postmans back !! - perhaps a bit of common sense could prevail when in comes to the govt and semi-states delivering so much junk mail in Irish.

asdasd

The anti-Irish sleveeness of the OP's point is cringeworthy, but I tend to agree that

1) There should be an Irish brochure on demand, on request ( unless that costs more).
2) It should be on t'interweb. Most people have access. Printed version on request for a few more years, if that.

asdasd

You never asked me before what nationality I am, and its none of your business. Its not relevant. What difference to you is it if I have a "Pas" ( passport ) or not ?

Sure it's relevent. If you are native English, for instance, and were opposed to the Irish language it would be external bigotry rather than a discussion we are having amongst ourselves.

markpb

asdasd wrote: »

1) There should be an Irish crochure on demand, on request ( unless that costs more).

It would be trivial for ESB (and other government agencies) to ask people which language they'd like to use for communication and then stick to that. Sending both languages to everyone is a waste of money. If you're happy using Irish, ESB et al should send your bill, your letters and your useless leaflets about turning off lights in Irish.