Body to disband next month for lack of Government support.

The latest twist in the story of the inadequacy of the funding made available for the approved Language Planning initiative in the Cois Fharraige District (Na Forbacha west to Ros a'Mhíl) was the decision of the Forum to disband unless a realistic increase in funding becomes available. This ought not be regarded as a threat according to their chair, Máire Ní Neachtain, speaking on the radio this morning, but rather as the only option as the plan could not be operated as envisiged and approved without this support.

They have spent three long years in developing this plan at the request of the Government. It is not unreasonable at this stage to be able to see the fruits of their labours!

An unanimous decision was taken by the Forum last night (20 November 2017) to resign en mass unless the Department came up with realistic funding by Christmas. They are hopeful that a response will be forthcoming from the Department (Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht).

There were 22 representatives of 17 local community organisations present at the meeting.

Great dismay was expressed at the report from the forum committee on their meeting (earlier this month) with representatives of the Department & the Udarás in so far as the Department seemed unable (unwilling?) to provide funding to enable a plan approved and permitted by the Minister in accordance with the legal provisions to proceed.

The comprehensive plan, suitable for this complex area, was developed and submitted on the request of the Government and approved last May and launched by Minister of State Joe McHugh  at a function in Gaoth Dobhair in September, calls for three full-time employees to accomplish the work and funding of €250,000 per year. However during this launch it transpired that the Department would only finance it to the tune of €100,000 pa and one employee. The Minister said at the time "The allocation of up to €100,000 for each area means that the Gaeltacht communities will now be able to put their plans into action and have a greater influence than ever on the state of the Irish language, with ongoing assistance from my Department, Údarás na Gaeltachta and other stakeholders." This despite the fact that the Cois Fharraige Forum had carefully costed and fine tuned their plan, the plan launched and approved that day by the Minister, at €250,000 per annum. Quite obviously the Department or the Minister or both had not read the plan.

The Forum believes that this decision leaves the entire scheme in ruins and their diligent work of three years a complete waste of time.

In a statement after the meeting last night the Forum expressed its anxiety that "time is slipping by and severe neccessity for a plan to progress for the language requirements for the district from No Forbacha to Ros a'Mhíl" (our translation). The unanimous decision was to allow the Department and Udarás na Gaeltachta until Christmas 2017 "to submit an offer with a substantial increase in the annual funding and human resources for implementation."

A former head of RTÉ Raidío na Gaeltachta, Tomás Mac Con Iomaire has said that all the Gaeltacht Language Planning Forums and/or Committees should come together to take a stand on the attitude of the Department. Professor Dónal Ó Baoill, workig on the scheme in Gaoth Dobhair & Na Rosann, has said that these plans cannot succeed without adequate support and leadership. Páidí Ó Sé from the Corca Duibhne Co-operative, said last month that the team in that district was supporting the stand being taken by the Cois Fharraige Forum.

• See also "Keep your €100,000!"

Listening and thinking...action?

As we mentioned in our previous posting the Language Planning Forum of the Cois Fharraige area of South Conamara rejected as inadequate the funding offered for the action plan which it had previously approved. (see Keep you €100k!).

Statement from the Forum

In making their unanimous decision they did however leave the way open for discussions with the Department and with Udarás na Gaeltachta (who had assisted in funding the research which lead to the final approved plan).

Now we learn that five members of the Forum met officers from both the Department & the Udarás on the 9th November to discuss the impasse. They pointed that the plan could not progress or even start thier plan without the resources as outlined in the plan.

At the end of the meeting, which lasted two hours, the Department of the Gaeltacht officials requested more time to think on what they had heard from the delegation. They indicated that the Department would revert to the delegation after that.

Meanwhile in the words of the former Coimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, in his last statement before resigning in principle( translation): "Meanwhile tick-tock, Tempus fugit and if, as is said in Irish, “God’s mills grind slowly” it appears the wheels of the state turn more slowly still, particularly in the case of the language."

Perhaps we could also say while the Department mulls Rome burns.

The Forum itself is to meet on the 20th November to discuss the meeting and progress, if any, in the discussions.

Listening and thinking is well and good but will it lead to action?

What does history tell us?

Keep your €100,000!

Something quite extraordinary happened in the Cois Fharraige district of South Conamara last Monday evening. A committee, which had spent two years voluntarily and on a "pro bono" basis working on a project authorised by the Government producing a comprehensive report and plan for the area, unanimously rejected €100,000 as the maximun amount of money to implement the plan.

The draft plan was presented to the people of the district at the end of last year. Subsequently the completed plan was submitted to Udarás na Gaeltachta and then to the relevant Government Department and was accepted by both bodies and indeed was welcomed by the Minister of State responsible Mr Joe McHugh when he launched them in September 2017. However when he welcomed them he advised that his Department was providing a maximum of €100,000 towards each of the plans in each Gaeltacht Area. This has now been rejected by at least one of the communities

So what went wrong.

The Gaeltacht Act, which was rammed through the Dáil in 2012, decided to place the onourous responsibility of language planning on each Gaeltacht Area. (Indeed this is the first act on Irish or the Gaeltacht not passed unanimously by the Oireachtas. Acht na Gaeilge in 2003, the act which instituted the office of Comissioner Teanga, was painstakingly put together and debated in each house and passed with the full agreement of all parties.) The 2012 act removed the democratic aspect of the Udarás na Gaeltachta from the people. An examination of the deficiencies appeared in this article in the Irish Times (3rd July 2012). In the event the Act was not properly debated and occasioned a walk out by the entire opposition before it was passed without a vote.

The Department then proceed to select the various areas (26 in all). These appear to be arbitrarily selected with little reference to the state of the language in the planning areas. In the Cois Fharraige area this is painfully obvious containing three types of areas as defined by linguistic experts. These are where the language is spoken by an absolute majority (western part of area), where it is less strong (the central area) and finally where it is quite weak (the part of the area closest to Galway City). One would have thought that even to the casual observer each of these areas would have different problems requiring different solutions. Nevertheless these areas are lumped together by the Department as one language planning area. Other Gaeltacht planning areas have been selected on the same haphazard basis. In recent days it has been reported that off the record comments from officials charged with approving these schemes had little or no expertese in the area of language planning.

These committees were given little direction from the Department and certainly they were given no directions or idea as to what finance would be available for the implementation of these games. Remember too that the members of the committees in each district are voluntary with little experience and had to seek advice from language planning experts. They were of course sensible people knowing that there would not be a limitless amount of funds available but assumed, foolishly as it now appears, that the Government wanted them to produce an effective workable plan suitable for the various sub-groups in the planning district.

A body called Fóram Chois Fharraige um Phleanáil Teanga (Cois Fharraige Language Planning Forum). This body is representative of many voluntary community-based organisations operating in the five school areas of Na Forbacha, An Spidéal, An Cnoc, An Tulach and Ros a’ Mhíl. Údarás na Gaeltachta awarded the contract for the preparation of a language plan to the Forum, a contract was signed and funding was provided to prepare a plan. Work commenced in 2014.

They arrived by the end of 2016 with an extraordinary, not to say impressive, document with costed recommendations for reasonable achievable goals in the period of the plan - 2017-2023. A pdf summary in English may be found here. The plan was prepared according to the guidelines set down by Údarás na Gaeltachta. "We estimate that the seven-year plan will cost approximately €250,000 to implement in the Cois Fharraige area. A new community-based and representative organization or company will be required to oversee the implementation of the plan."

Now it appears that the Department while accepting the plan is not prepared to ensure its success by providing the resources. They have moved the goalposts, they have castrated the plan and have shown contempt for the unselfish volunteers.  The plan  is now rendered inoperable and the work of the voluntary members of the committee is wasted. The money already spent on the funding of professionals by the state is also down the drain. This is the reason the Forum has rejected this decision of the Government.

The working Group for Corca Duibhne (West Kerry) have announced that they are supporting the Forum too. And there are reports that the body responsible in Gaoth Dobhair (Donegal) has in fact already disbanded.

The Coimisinéir Teanga made the following statement in 2015 (my translation) "...from my interpretation of the language planning process, with which I have no direct connection, it appears that the heavy burden has been placed on the local communities and I query if the state system is prepared to carry its own part of this burden. Maybe it is more correct to ask if the Gaeltacht people are being asked to shoulder more of the burden of the language than the State itself?" (August 2015)

It would appear that the State has now answered this question and it appears that the endangered Gaeltacht Communities have buckled under the strain.