Gaelic Language Revival Triggers Dublin To Reverse Policy - More Irish Speakers For The Civil Service

“Contrary to popular perception, the total number of people who can speak Irish in this country has increased slightly in recent years, with a 7% increase in number of speakers between the two most recent censuses in 2006 and 2011.”

Recent news reports cite the failure of the Irish government agency responsible for protecting the Irish language to bother correctly translating into Irish an account of the upcoming commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising.  In November 2013 the Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht, published on its website an Irish language version of a report on the Rising in Irish that was so poorly written that it was described as gibberish.  

Then last month a damning report was issued by the Minister for the Gaeltacht (Irish Speaking Areas) in which the government admitted to a shortage of Irish speakers dedicated to delivering government services in Irish. As a result the Minister for the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys, was forced to declare the government in violation of a 2001 Supreme Court ruling which guarantees the right of Irish speakers to receive State services in Gaelic.  In well-honed bureaucratic double talk, the Minister stated “public bodies had a fundamental difficulty due to lack of staff with sufficient competence. This has resulted in many public bodies encountering difficulties in implementing all of the statutory commitments.”

The failure of the government to provide mandated state services in Gaelic is linked to the government’s October 2013 decision to abolish a long standing system which gave bonus marks to people sitting for civil service entrance exams in Irish.  It is logical to assume that this in turn reduced the number of incoming civil servants with adequate Irish language skills thus leading to the current shortage of qualified Irish speakers in state service.

In contrast this week we had encouraging news from Dublin. A report commissioned by a Committee of the Irish Parliament (Oireachtas Eireann) recommended a minimum 10% of public workers in all departments be proficient in the Irish language.  In addition, recommendations include that the visibility of Irish on both official online resources and social media be enhanced and all official documents should be published bilingually in a single document.

There is more encouraging news for the Celtic tongue of Ireland as reported on the website The Journal under the headline, “10% Of All Civil Servants Should Be Proficient In The Irish Language”.  The reversal of policy on the Irish language proficiency of bureaucrats,  if the Committee’s recommendations are acted upon, is linked by The Journal article to a very encouraging reversal in the decline of Gaelic in Ireland.  Quoting from the article: “Contrary to popular perception, the total number of people who can speak Irish in this country has increased slightly in recent years, with a 7% increase in number of speakers between the two most recent censuses in 2006 and 2011.”

The General Secretary of Conradh na Gaelge, is quoted in the Journal article commenting on the Committee’s recommendations: “The figure of 10% regarding Irish-speaking, it would take a number of years to implement,” he said. " But really all you are talking about is having 30% of new hires to public service as being proficient. It’s not much to ask, they are already being taught the language in school, this would simply be making good on that investment. “

http://www.thejournal.ie/10-irish-language-1908207-Jan2015/

http://www.transceltic.com/blog/irish-government-violates-supreme-court-...