THE Government parties, and Labour in particular, may be feeling a little complacent about the Irish language as an issue in this election.
Whatever about tackling the thorny problems which have concerned the language movement for years - depopulation of Gaeltacht areas, the lack of State services through Irish, the Department of Education's apparent hostility towards gaelscoileanna - they can rightly claim that they delivered on the single most important language issue in decades: Teilifis na Gaeilge.
The concept of an Irish-language station remained a distant and slightly other-worldly chimera for years under previous governments. Although the first concrete steps to establish it were taken by Fianna Fail's Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, it might well have languished in the realm of political fantasy for another decade were it not for Michael D. Higgins's determination to see it through.
His faith has not been misplaced. After a rocky start the station has settled down.
Figures from Nielsen, the official TV audience ratings agency, show TnaG's nightly average audience grew from 173,000 in February to 250,000 by mid-March. Research commissioned by TnaG suggests that more than 65 per cent of the population have tuned to the new station.
Politics is a cruel game, however, and although Michael D. has earned the gratitude of Irish speakers, another Labour minister is remembered with much less fondness.
When the Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, refused recognition to seven gaelscoileanna last August she sparked a vigorous campaign that ended with an ignominious climbdown by the Department on the steps of the High Court. Her decision reinforced a conviction among Irish speakers that, despite all the lofty rhetoric about pluralism in the White Paper on Education, the Department had become increasingly alarmed at the exponential growth of the sector.
It seemed to some observers that certain officials within the Department viewed the all-Irish schools as at best an irritation to be endured, or at worst an aberration to be discouraged.
In its campaign, however, the Gaelscoileanna movement had a powerful if simple argument. Parents were entitled to educate their children through Irish if they so wished, it said. In basing its campaign on the issue of parental choice, the organisation found willing allies in the multi-denominational schools movement, Educate Together, which was itself concerned about the implications of the Minister's decision.
This issue - parental choice, and in a wider sense the right of citizens to avail of State services in either English or Irish - is likely to resurface as a key issue in the life-time of the next government, as falling numbers put increasing pressure on existing schools and make setting up new ones more problematic.
Gaelscoileanna and Educate Together will make common cause with small rural schools, who argue that their social value out-weighs the extra cost they entail. But an ominous cloud on the horizon, for every sector but the mainstream, is the report of the Commission on School Accommodation Needs. Set up by the outgoing Government, it is expected to recommend significant amalgamations of smaller schools.
The next government will be faced with a major choice. It can facilitate the transformation of Irish education into a more pluralist, multi-layered canvas, by aiding the establishment of more all-Irish and multi-denominational schools, despite the inevitable extra cost. Or it can choose the route favoured by the Department's accountants, and block new schools, force more amalgamations, and thwart the will of an increasing number of parents who want to give their children chances they never had themselves.
All the political parties pay lip-service to the idea of more pluralism, including more gaelscoileanna, just as they pay lip-service to the continuing ideal of a resurgent language. But there is less willingness to tackle the hard spending questions that follow from such commitments. Questions such as those raised at the launch of Language Policy and Social Reproduction: Ireland 1893-1993 by Prof Padraig O Riagain last week.
Prof O Riagain said the practical focus of current policies seemed to be to supply certain basic services through Irish (schools, television and radio stations), with a corresponding downgrading of the traditional revival objectives.
"One can detect in this approach the beginnings of a more selective and narrowly-based language strategy, aiming at language survival rather than revival," he said.
"But the more policy singles out `Irish speakers' as the target for language policies, on the grounds of their rights as a minority group, the less plausible it becomes to sustain existing nationwide policies to revive Irish.
"Furthermore, Irish-speaking networks are not strong enough at present to guarantee the reproduction of spoken Irish, or its expansion, into the next generation.
"A policy built around the provision of State services to Irish-speakers may find that they do not exist in large enough numbers, nor are they sufficiently concentrated to meet the operational thresholds required to make language-specific services viable.
"The survival option, if it is understood in these terms, may not be on offer. Survival requires revival.
"As the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu, observed, `those who seek to defend a threatened language ... are obliged to wage a total struggle'", Prof O Riagain added.
He went on: "If Irish language policies are to have any significant impact, they will require large resources on a scale which has not been hitherto realised. Effective language policies must affect all aspects of national life and will have to be sustained for decades."
It is a warning which chimes uneasily with the oft-repeated pieties of fiscal rectitude and tax reform. The next government, whatever its hue, will probably ignore it.