20 Years of the Official Languages Act 2003 and One Year since the Establishment of the Advisory Committee for Irish Services: Review

The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin T.D. and the Minister of State with responsibility for the Gaeltacht, Patrick O’Donovan T.D., have celebrated 20 years of the Official Languages Act together with one year of the Irish Language Services Advisory Committee. 

With the Irish language being recognised as the first official language of the State in Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Constitution of Ireland), the signing of the Official Languages Act on the 14 July 2003 gave statutory recognition and protection for the first time to the rights of Irish citizens’ to use the Irish language in their daily business with the State.

The Act laid the foundation for increasing and improving the number and quality of services provided through the medium of Irish by public bodies. This was done through placing direct duties on public bodies under the Act which related to, for example, providing responses to communications in the official language in which they were received, as well as communicating information to the public in Irish only or bilingually.  A number of documents from public bodies were also specified to be published bilingually at the same time. Under Section 9 of the Act, regulations were also made in 2008 which set out additional duties in relation to pre-recorded verbal announcements, stationery, signs and Gaeltacht placenames.

Of course, Oifig an Choimisinéara Teanga was also established under the Act in 2004. The principal duties assigned to that office under the Act are to monitor the compliance of public bodies with provisions of the Act and to take necessary measures to ensure that public bodies fulfil their duties under the Act.

It goes without saying that life has changed a lot in the past 20 years with the country coming through an economic crisis and other crises in the meantime, therefore it cannot be said that the Principal Act was without criticism, in particular around the implementation of the language schemes.

To that end, the President of Ireland signed the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021 into law on 22 December 2021. This new legislation is a strengthening of the Official Languages Act 2003, and it is widely recognised that it will make a significant contribution to the quality of Irish language services provided to the public by State bodies.

 

The primary objectives of the strengthened Act are that:

• 20% of recruits to the public sector will be competent in the Irish language by the end of 2030;
• all public services in the Gaeltacht and for the Gaeltacht will be provided through Irish;
• all public offices in the Gaeltacht will operate through the medium of Irish;
• the National Plan for Irish Language Public Services will be developed; and 
• a system of language standards will be introduced in place of the system of language schemes.

 

Central to these efforts will be the work of the Irish Language Services Advisory Committee. The Committee was established on 20 June 2022, and the work of the Committee will be primarily focused on the preparation of the first National Plan for Irish Language Services for the first two years, to ensure that this is completed before the deadline of 19 June 2024.

In accordance with its functions under the Act, a research contract was agreed with the University of Galway in December 2022 to support this work. The Advisory Committee met with members of the research team for the National Plan at its last meeting on Friday, 30 June 2023.

Dr. Kerron Ó Luain, who is to be the Research Fellow and head of the project, was appointed through a recruitment process run by the University of Galway earlier this year. Dr. Ó Luain presented a work plan for the research to the Committee at this meeting, which was well received.

 

This research and Plan will look to:

• identify the gaps in the current provision of public services through the medium of Irish and propose strategies to address them;
• identify the public services provided in Gaeltacht Language Planning Areas (LPAs) and specify strategies to ensure that Irish is the working language of offices located in LPAs and that services are being provided through the medium of Irish;
• identify the current level of Irish language competence in the public sector;
• make recommendations regarding recruitment.

 

A specific commitment has also been given in the Civil Service Renewal Strategy 2030 to implement this National Plan.

In relation to other significant provisions of the amended Act, there is the advertising provision (Section 10A). That provision was commenced on 10 October last year (2022) and places a duty on all public bodies to carry out at least 20% of their annual advertising in Irish and to spend at least 5% of their annual advertising budgets on advertising through the medium of Irish in Irish language media. It is an extremely positive provision that has already greatly increased the visibility of the language across all media platforms used by public bodies.

Of course, developments in the digital media in particular are to be addressed with the amended Act, with posts on social media to be responded to in the official language in which they are received, before the end of the year. Additional duties will also be placed on public bodies in relation to the use and recording of names, addresses and titles in Irish - including the length accent, and they will be given a set period of time in which to ensure that their ICT and other systems are configured in such a way to accept same, if not done so already.

Speaking on the day, Minister Martin said: “It gives me great pleasure to mark this anniversary today - 20 years since the enactment of the Official Languages Act 2003. Much has been achieved under the Principal Act and we’re now looking ahead to achieving more under the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021. My Officials are working hard to commence all the provisions of the Act before the end of the year. If this is achieved, it would be an entire year ahead of the mandatory commencement schedule set out under the Act. Every step forward taken with this work is one step closer to normalising the Irish language as a normal language of work and business in the public sector - empowering Irish language speakers to use it in all aspects of their lives - particularly in their dealings with the State.”

A major awareness campaign is to be launched in the autumn regarding the significant employment opportunities that exist and will exist as a result of the Act for those with Irish in the public sector, with the aim of several competitions for roles with the Irish language coinciding with that - in the area of communications for example.

The Department also approved an increased grant for Gluaiseacht (Conradh na Gaeilge’s Roadshow) earlier this year, up 85% on the 2021-2022 grant, to enable them to deliver the message loud and clear to over 28,000 young people a year that these employment opportunities exist.