Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE OFFICE OF An Coimisinéir Teanga will not be merged with the Office of the Ombudsman, which was widely welcomed by Conradh na Gaeilge, a forum for the Irish-speaking community working to promote the language who have 200 branches around the country.
The Official Language Act 2003 is to be amended to ensure that expenditure on the language is best targeted towards the development of the language the government announced today.
The amendment is to ensure that it “continues to be an effective support to everyone who wishes to avail of high quality services in Irish from the State,” said the Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Dinny McGinley.
Gaeltacht community
Cóilín Ó Cearbhaill, President of Conradh na Gaeilge said it was ”great news for the Irish-speaking and Gaeltacht community that the Government has finally listened to us and decided to retain the Office of An Coimisinéir Teanga as a completely independent entity…”, adding that everyone who supported the retention of an independent Office of An Coimisinéir Teanga in the last two years deserves “huge praise and credit”.
They called on further provisions to be made in the amendment in the act that they said would “strengthening, not weakening, the legislation protecting the basic human rights of the Irish-speaking and Gaeltacht community”.
The called for the act to guarantee that state services will be provided to the Gaeltacht community through Irish, without condition or question, by the end of 2016 and that those services will be provided at the same standard as they are provided in English elsewhere.
They also want regulations to be introduced that would see a specific amount of people in every public body be able to provide services through Irish. “Not every new employee need have Irish, but a percentage of all staff should be proficient in Irish,” they said.
Conradh na Gaeilge said they will be lobbying the Government and the Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht “vehemently” on the Official Languages Bill 2014 in the coming weeks.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Double everything, and confusing signs everywhere just for a few hundred people who continue to hang on to a dead dialect that barely qualifies as a language anymore.
Word marko!
What a stupid comment.. Men fought and died for the Irish Language
I think it was fighting and dying for Irish freedom more so
Nonsense – even the Proclamation was in English. We made the language our own. that is the whole point of our story. Not going back to the 18th Century. Our world famous writers more than demonstrated what being Irish is to the world- there is no loss of identity.
You really need to look up the definitions of dialect and language. Absolutely ignorant and embarrassing statement.
Not at all. It isn’t a language if no one speaks it and every second word is from another language because of its limited vocabulary.
Language and nationalism should never mix. And this is about nothing but phoney nationalism, not communication.
People should be speaking the language down the pub, at home.
And not just to unnecessary jobs-for-the-boys speakers which we all have to pay for.
Waste of money. Should have been merged and buried.
Have FG/Labour removed any of the 1000-ish quangos yet?
Do, an unelected “forum” will lobby “vehemently” and will seek to dictate to Government how services will be provided to a population which is largely English speaking, and will also dictate who is to be employed? All the while receiving every grant and concession possible? That seems just fine, and very ‘Irish’ indeed.
Another waste of money. Roll on all the red thumbs from the gaelnazis
Ok. Ceart go leor…
Ireland is an English speaking country. That’s not going to change. Ireland has benefited so much over the years because you speak english. The Irish language is dead. Sadly, but that’s how it is.
Yawnballs
have your say