A Millward Brown/Tuairisc.ie opinion poll published in October showed that a large majority of the population believe that the State should do more to support the Irish language. Unfortunately, this particular strain of enthusiasm for Irish among the public is never regarded by policy makers as evidence of a possible mandate to radically change their approach to preserving the language. Instead the State continues to relinquish its responibilty for ensuring that Irish survives as the language of the home and the community in those areas where it is still spoken by a majority. The Gaeltacht Act has essentially handed over the messy business of language planning and language maintenance to the people of the Gaeltacht, while risible reforms proposed for the Civil Service fail even to guarantee public services in Irish to Irish-speaking communites. In education, sensible proposals for change in how teachers are trained to teach Irish and how pupils learn the language are ignored, as policy continues to pander to the enthusiast above all else.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 09:03:37 +0000