This is actually a brilliant idea!

Genuinely is a great idea!

Arbitrasure
We’d have to import the language teachers to achieve that. Have a look at the complete failure to teach our own language to pupils over twelve years of primary and second level education and then look at teacher salaries which are among the highest in Europe and their teaching hours at the lowest levels.
Strong Unions and kids as human shields !
We never learn .

Richard, it’s not the fault of the language teachers, it’s the fault of the curriculum. The syllabus is all about the written language and not the spoken language and that falls with the Department of Education. Only recently have more marks been awarded for the oral Irish exam. Previously it was I think 10-20% so it was pointless teachers ‘training’ students to speak it.

Remember, although we’d all like to speak Irish, when it came to exams you didn’t care as long as you got the marks. The marks were awarded for written. You were taught the written exam even if you didn’t truly understand what you wrote down. You rote learned everything and as pointless as it is, the LC is all about getting good grades and teachers know this. Parents, students and the public would be crying if students weren’t getting the grades and were instead learning the language. If the exam was 60% oral then it would change but again, one teacher teaching 30 students in what can only be called a compromise for a language room? If you want to learn a language you immerse yourself in the language but schools cannot cater for that.

And Richard, teachers in Ireland work the 2nd longest hours in the EU so get your facts straight before you start spouting. And the salaries are pretty low considering other IRISH jobs. Comparing to other countries is rubbish as you don’t take into account standards of living, costs of living etc. But here, social welfare in Ireland is among the HIGHEST in the EU so cut that too while you’re at it.

Conor
You must be a teacher and defending the appalling failure to do your job or teach a language obverse a twelve year cycle simply because the syllabus is wrong is about as sick a comment as I have ever heard on the subject.
So let’s get this correct, you support highe relative pay for teachers because we have high levels of Social Welfare and the cost of living is high and none of this has anything whatever to do with ability to teach or results.
We may as well reduce teachers pay to Social Welfare levels and get Teachers from the dole queues.
What an idiot.

Those very courses are available in……..Dundalk IT. 100 metres from the PayPal campus!

Eh ….if you’re unemployed you can get ‘tell me more’ online for nothing, go to library in ilac and do group chats with foreigners to learn more etc

I learnt French fluently from being a beginner in one year. Whilst working

No need for teachers really. Needs INITIATIVE by people. Spoon feeding is not necessary!!

if your not Irish , this is great news altogether ,

I Was out there last year when the demolition began on that building with the sanction of the IDA, it was shameful that a building, built by the IDA at a cost of millions ( to the taxpayer) was torn to shreds and basically thrown into a skip, while its great news to new jobs coming online it was a shame to see a brand new building destroyed.

What building was that. The one in Dundalk where PayPal is located now?

Whilst it would be great in Waterford, Waterford would seriously lack the language skills to make a contact site there viable

Im on about any new jobs announcement for waterford in any sector.

Does Dundalk have better language skills than Waterford? Really? Or is it just that Dundalk is represented in cabinet & Waterford isn’t?

Or is it dundalk has a massive foreign national population? Not everything is a conspiracy ya know.

Waterford has more than enough foreign nationals living there too,

How would Waterford have any less language opportunities than Dundalk?
Waterford along with linerick were originally in the running to get this placement (when PayPal were setting up the call center) and as far as I’m aware one of the main reasons for not choosing wd was the lack of free space large enough to keep all operations under one roof . I’m sure the proximity to their headquarters in blanch I imagine is a factor too.
I can only hope that if we support all our regions together can get so much of this country back to work rather than dogging places for the sake of it . (not saying anyone on this story is).

Different recession in the rest of the country to here unfortunately bilbo.

Whats the broadband speeds up there or does the county have a link to the MAN?

The thick Donegal accent would render a contact centre infuriating to foreign ears.

Also the lack of second language skills and a graduate workforce.

Dundalk has a MAN, has the typical phoneline broadband providers and also Digiweb Metro. No UPC broadband in Co. Louth however.

O’Dowd is a junior minister.

Untrue.

Gerry I have to disagree with you there.

This is brilliant news for Dundalk. Between Paypal and Ebay that will bring there main workforce in Dundalk to 1450 over the next few years, granted not all positions have been filled but Paypal did say last year that theses jobs will come in various stages over the next number of years.

Apart from the Jobs part of it this is also a brilliant endorsement for Dundalk, the town received a lot of negative press in the wake of the killing of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe the Sunday World’s description of Dundalk was a disgrace and uncalled for. The entire town was outraged with this killing. So for a major international company to continue to expand in town goes to prove Nicola Tallagnt and the Sunday World wrong.

As for the ‘Political Opportunist mutual back slapping exercise’ who really cares??? As long as they deliver on their promise to deliver the full 1450 jobs then Dundalk and it’s surrounding economy are the winners.

if local people want the jobs bad enough they will upskill

Dundalk has a great IT less than 100 metres from the PayPal campus. Training & producing quality bi-lingual graduates won’t be a problem.

Scrap Irish and teach European languages in primary schools, you want Irish for your kid then go Gaelscoil

@Vincent, agree 100%, it’s nonsense that you have to Irish to work in guards etc. Given a choice I would not have had my kids wasting their time learning it. I’d sooner they learned Japanese or Russian, any language that may be USEFUL. If people feel passionately about it, fine speak Irish, but it shouldn’t be forced on those who don’t want to learn it.

Vincent / John

Last time I looked the only jobs remaining in the country requiring an Honours Leaving Cert in Irish are, Primary Teacher, Second Level Irish Teaching, Third Level Irish Lecturing & Law

For Second Level & 3rd Level Honours Irish is understandable, you must be able to teach Irish at that level.

Law is totally understandable as English is the joint language of the state so laws must be written in Irish.

I do however have a problem requiring our Primary Teachers to have Honours Irish in the Leaving Cert as;
1. They will never be required in their teaching careers to teach at that level.
2. We do not require our Primary Teachers to also have Honours Leaving Cert’s, in English & Maths, the other two main subjects of the curriculum, never mind Honours in History, Geography, and Music etc.

I always found it strange that when teachers did not want students to know what they were talking about the spoke in Irish.

I would like to know how much of the Education budget is spent teaching of Irish and how many jobs are created as result of this “investment” in Irish.

Japanese or Russian? Really? Japan is a long faded economic power now being eclipsed by south Korea and Russia has little economy outside of natural resources so I doubt either would be beneficial to learn for the future

@Gavin, still languages used and used by 100′s of millions of people, unlike Irish. So regardless how unlikely it is that they may be of use (my orignal point) Irish will be of no value to them in the real world + they’ll have wasted (in my opinion) probably more than 10% of their schooling on it.

yeah but all the kids can speak Irish :-o

I was wondering the same thing

These are an extra 400 hundred jobs on top of the 1000 jobs announced last year for pay pal.

In that case, excellent news! Keep those jobs coming. Btw, Good suggestion above about courses to brush up on languages. These multinational jobs may also inspire change in the main stream school curriculum … to encourage fluency in other languages. The world is getting smaller and communication a vital and fundamental cog.

Oh shut up.

oh yea that kind of information is just lying around. What number is satisfactory to you 50%? 60? 80?
Is a Spaniard’s PAYE worth less to the exchequer than an Irish mans. Welcome to the EU, freedom of work and movement goes both ways since we joined in the seventies. Irish are free to gain employment in UK, Germany etc. without natives keeping the jobs for themselves. The jobs will go to the best qualified.