They lobbied for Irish to become an official European Union language, but MEPs have largely passed up the opportunity to speak "as Gaeilge" since 2007.
Unofficial figures from the European parliament show Labour has the worst record for speaking Irish, with its MEPs using the language in less than 1% of their speeches, compared to 3% for Fine Gael.
Fianna Fail has the best record with 47% of speeches by its MEPs being made either partly or fully in Irish. However, this figure is skewed by Seán Ó Neachtain, a former MEP, who gave all 125 of his speeches in the first official tongue. When Ó Neachtain is removed from Fianna Fail's figures, the party still has the highest use of the language at 15%. Brian Crowley used Irish in 23 of 110 speeches.
"He'd have struggled with it over the years but he thinks it's very important," said a spokesman for the Cork MEP, who is an early favourite to be the next president of Ireland.
Mairead McGuinness, a Fine Gael MEP, did not use Irish in any of her 253 speeches. "If I was an Irish speaker, I'd speak Irish, " she said.
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At the end of the year, the EU will review a limit on which legal texts must be translated into Irish. The government is unlikely to ask for this to be lifted because of a shortage of interpreters.