It's been revealed that thousands of Junior and Leaving Cert students who are exempt from Irish are studying another language.

Over 2,000 students sat language subjects such as French and German in their exams, leading to claims that the system is being gamed by people who just don't want to do Irish.

Julian de Spáinn, General Secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge, says that exemptions are based on learning difficulties and that there seems to be a lot of them given in the past number of years.

"The Department promised to review this over 15 years ago and they still haven't done it. When it comes to learning difficulties, we need to support those students that have problems."

Julian says that specialised courses should be provided for those who received Irish exemptions in primary school: "What would be needed is some sort of course that would be specifically geared towards them because they would have missed out."

"All students can benefit from learning the language, but it's something that isn't being addressed."

Declan Lynch of the Sunday Independent thinks it's reasonable for people to decide what languages they do and don't want to study.

"They're doing it for the right reasons which is that they believe they should have a choice of what language they do in school."

"I'm always amazed that people within the language movement don't see how damaging compulsory Irish has been. People in any culture don't like being forced to do things."

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