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A DECISION by Minister for Education Mary Coughlan not to add a new Irish language subject to the Leaving Cert curriculum will lead to “cultural impoverishment”, a leading educationalist has warned.

A campaign to introduce the subject was launched by Áine Ní Ghallchóir of NUI Maynooth after it emerged that a revised Leaving syllabus being introduced this September included a reduced volume of literature for higher level-students. Instead, the new syllabus has a greater focus on spoken and aural examinations with 40 per cent of the marks to be allotted to the oral examination, and 10 per cent for the aural examination.