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A MISQUOTED CONVERSATION from a live-streamed podcast has been used to falsely claim that an academic who advises the government on racism argued that Irish people should give up on the Irish language.

The unedited remarks show that she actually said that being able to speak Irish should not be a requirement for teachers.

“‘We don’t need to speak Irish, Irish people should abandon their language’ – Dr Ebun Joseph” reads a caption over one video.

The video features Joseph, who advises the department of justice in her role as Special Rapporteur for Racial Equality and Racism, speaking at a round table. However, the video does not say what the onscreen caption quotes her as saying.

“Please, please, please let it go,” she says in the video. “We need teachers who do not speak Irish.”

That video, on the account “Time_4_change_restoreUK” has been reshared on TikTok more than a thousand times since it was posted on 13 August.

Other posts, by the account Catholic Arena, call Joseph the “government’s Race Czar” and says she “called for an END to the Irish language, instructing Irish people to ‘stop it’”

Their posts, on Instagram and Facebook, have also been shared more than a thousand times since being posted on 12 August.

Similar posts misquoting Joseph have been viewed on X more than a million times.

Joseph’s full remarks can be heard on a 6 August livestream of a recording of her podcast, the Deep Table.

Around 47 minutes into the video, the group discusses how some people are excluded from public sector work over arbitrary rules.

Joseph responds saying that it used to be the case that non-citizens could not work in the civil service at all.

“It really locked out quite a long number of people,” Joseph says.

“I think one that really needs to go — please, please let it go — we need teachers who don’t have to speak Irish. Please! You know, like, stop it!” The group laughs.

Joseph says that she thinks that teachers should instead focus on the core subject like maths. “We don’t teach maths in Irish, do we?” she asks.

“In some schools, yes,” a guest corrects her.

“Oh, Sorry,” Joseph says. “But that’s like an Irish school.”

She goes on to seemingly agree that some schools should teach all subjects through Irish “So that’s the school. That’s what it should be,” she says. However, as there is a lot of back-and-forth in this section, her exact meaning is ambiguous.

However, in a follow-up post on her Facebook page, Joseph addressed the controversy over her remarks (largely misreported) on the Irish language.

“I think it is important to correct the record,” Joseph wrote. “I did not suggest that the Irish language should be scrapped.”

“My suggestion was specifically about how we might address the shortage of teachers, utilise teachers who do not speak Irish while also improving students’ experience of learning Irish.”

Her post outlines her position on how Irish should be taught, but only by teachers passionate about the language.

“If you want to debate or disagree with my proposal, that’s absolutely fair. But please debate what I actually said, rather than attributing a position to me that I did not take,” Joseph wrote.

Currently, all primary teachers in Ireland are supposed to be able to teach through Irish and this is tested either through qualifications, high Leaving Cert grades, or oral interviews in Irish.

Teachers who train outside Ireland get a temporary exemption, but still need to take Irish courses or pass aptitude tests within set times.

Post-primary school teachers do not need Irish except if they teach this as a subject, or need to teach through Irish, such as at a Gaelscoil.

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