Both Galway councils rapped for ignoring Irish
Galway’s two local authorities did not fully comply with their Irish language obligations last year, the Irish language commissioner has highlighted.
An Coimisinéir Teanga’s annual report identified that Galway County Council, which has responsibility for the country’s largest Gaeltacht, and Galway City Council, which is on its doorstep, were not compliant with sections of the Official Language Act in relation to oral announcements and recorded messages.
Rónán Ó Domhnaill said that just two local authorities, Donegal and Laois, were found to have recorded messages in compliance with the regulations at public phone numbers.
Speaking at the launch of his annual report, 2014, Mr Ó Domhnaill said: “This demonstrates the widespread lack of care for the language by the State generally; if local authorities aren’t complying with their language obligations, what hope does a citizen have in getting the proper service from the State generally?”
As part of the audit programme undertaken by his office in 2014 it was decided to investigate the usage of recorded announcements by local authorities. According to the report, the aim of the audit was to reach a general opinion regarding the level of compliance with the regulations by local authorities.
“Phone calls were made at different times to the main offices of local authorities, during work hours and after work hours, as well as calls to housing departments and libraries after normal work hours. Donegal and Laois County Councils were the only authorities that were using recorded oral announcements which were in compliance with the regulations.
“We are in contact with the local authorities whose recorded oral announcements weren’t compliant to ensure that they are compliant within a reasonable period of time. Their progress will be reviewed during 2015,” the report said.
The report noted that the Office of An Coimisinéir Teanga handled 709 new complaints during 2014, a slight increase of one per cent on 2013 when 702 complaints were dealt with. Some 88 complaint files were open at the end of 2014 in comparison with 72 at the end of 2013.
The report noted that a “substantial number” of complaints to the Office of An Coimisinéir Teanga last year came from County Galway.
Some 14% of cases were from Galway, which was second to Dublin where 37% of complaints originated.
The Office operates an informal resolution process as the first step of its investigative process which means that the majority of cases are resolved by discussing the matter with public bodies or by giving advice to citizens.
A total of seven statutory investigations were instigated by the Coimisinéir during 2014 and a final report was issued in relation to the Health Service Executive, the Railway Procurement Agency and Dublin Bus.
“Generally, the investigations are as a result of a lack of awareness amongst public bodies of the most basic aspects of language legislation in Ireland, said Mr Ó Domhnaill who succeeded Seán Ó Cuirreáin in March 2014.
Also contained in the annual report was an investigation which revealed that an attempt was made to compel a Gaeltacht school into accepting the relocation of a teacher from a redeployment panel even though the school authorities and the teachers in question felt that the teachers had insufficient Irish to carry out their work in that language.
Referring to the case Mr Ó Domhnaill said: “This is the first time that I have sent a case to the Houses of the Oireachtas, and the issue involved could not be more important. The Department of Education and Skills has not put a system in place which ensures that teachers teaching in Gaeltacht Schools and Gaelscoileanna are fluent in the Irish Language. I simply cannot accept that.”