Ending compulsory Irish in schools could worsen the state of the Irish language, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil as Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said it was time to stop clinging to a "75-year-old sacred cow that will not deliver".
Mr Kenny said it was time politically to take the language "by the scruff of the neck" and reform it completely.
He believed that the Oireachtas "should do for the language what Riverdance has done for Irish dancing", without compulsory Irish.
Mr Ahern said "the argument is that if any level of compulsion is removed, students not in Gaelscoileanna might balk at taking any interest in the language".
It could mean that, "the limited amount of Irish the majority of the population has, is reduced even further". He agreed, however, that "complicated grammar in schools does much to put people off the language. If there was more emphasis on spoken language, then we would certainly be better off, and I would certainly be better at the language," the Taoiseach added.
Deputy Kenny, who at his party's conference at the weekend suggested compulsory Irish be dropped after junior certificate, said that "few subjects over the generations have been the target of so much hypocrisy and lip service as the Irish language".
Compulsory Irish was introduced in 1934 and in 1973 it was removed "so that students might pass the Leaving Certificate, which was very important. While it is still compulsory for students to study Irish language classes for the Leaving Certificate, it is not compulsory to sit the exam".
Deputy Kenny said €500 million is being spent annually on teaching Irish, and throughout their school life students get a total of 1,500 hours of tuition in the language, but in most cases "as soon as students finish the Leaving Certificate, they leave Irish behind them".
Fewer students take honours Irish at Leaving Cert than any other language, he said. "In the last census only 70,000 people said they used it on a daily basis.
Deputy Kenny asked if the Taoiseach believed that the compulsion element "does anything to encourage students who sit in classes from Junior Certificate to Leaving Certificate, to become involved with their native tongue".
Mr Ahern said that when compulsory Irish was dropped in 1973 it did not have the intended result that more people would speak it.
Statistics indicated that "when compulsory Irish was removed from the equation, fewer people took the subject and that trend has continued down through the years". He added that "my concern is that if Irish is taken out of the schools the situation will worsen considerably, say, in 10 years' time".
Successive governments had resourced Irish through keeping a separate Department of Irish, training more teachers and more resources into teacher-training. "We have a language Bill, Bille na Gaeilge, put money into TG4 and more recently we have made resources available for the Gaelscoileanna, the scoileanna lan-Ghaelach, which are promoting the language." Deputy Kenny said "it is not just a question of clinging to a 75-year-old sacred cow that will not deliver. This is about looking at 2005 and beyond to the next generation of students, who should be involved in a language that is taught in a vibrant and energetic way," and "not tied down in the details of complicated grammar".
But Mr Ahern said many people dropped other subjects because they were not compulsory. "Many policies have changed, but the policy of promoting the Irish language to maximise those who speak it has not changed."
