Conradh na Gaeilge to appear before Committee for Communities through Irish
Upadte: You can watch the Committee proceedings here [CnaG session begins at 1:53:00]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FywfbZhH4Oo
Conradh na Gaeilge will today (Thursday 13 March 2025) address the Committee for Communities, setting out their concerns over the long delays to adopt an Irish language strategy and resolve the ongoing north-south funding crisis in the Irish language community. As part of today’s meeting, Conradh na Gaeilge will announce the beginning of new legal proceedings against the Executive’s ongoing failure to adopt an Irish language Strategy, an outstanding legal duty since 2006. This will be the 3rd Judicial Review taken by Conradh against the Executive, following 2 successful cases in 2017 and 2022 on the same subject. The move comes following a High-Court ruling last week declaring the Executive had failed to adopt an Anti-Poverty Strategy.
In recent days, the Minister has once again formally declined meet with Conradh na Gaeilge, amidst an ongoing funding crisis in the Irish language community. The Department for Communities is responsible for providing the northern portion of funding for the north-south body Foras na Gaeilge, which has recently announced cuts of €820,000, leading to strikes across the country. Attempts to amend that north-south funding mechanism to allow additional funds to be provided to Foras na Gaeilge without reciprocal funds from the northern Executive have been blocked 6 times by the DUP since October 2024, leading to the recently announced cuts.
Speaking before the Committee meeting, Conchúr Ó Muadaigh, Advocacy Manager with Conradh na Gaeilge said:
“It is incredibly disappointing that the Minister has, in recent days, once again refused to meet with us. Given the urgency around the current funding crisis, with many community groups facing huge uncertainty, we believe this should be a priority for the Minister and his Department. We believe the north-south funding structures are broken and no longer fit for purpose. We therefore need a long-term solution that will address and correct 25 years of disinvestment in our community.”
“Whilst the Executive is responsible for adopting an Irish language strategy as set out in law, the responsibility for developing the strategy has been devolved to the Minister for Communities. That legal duty has been outstanding for almost 20 years. The co-design work triggered by the New Decade New Approach Agreement began in 2020, and was to be completed within 6 months. No strategy should take over 5 years to compile. Those delays are simply unacceptable. Therefore we have taken the decision to begin new legal proceedings in a genuine attempt to bring this long overdue legal duty to completion with the introduction of the strategy. We cannot simply wait around any longer.”
We welcome the opportunity to bring these issues of concern to the Committee, and to be able to address such bodies in our own language is particularly important to us.”
