The public cannot be forced to bear the financial burden of enforcing new legislation on the Irish language, the Government was warned at the weekend.
Local authorities must not be forced to increase rates in order to meet the cost of providing Irish as well as English versions of documents, according to Mr John Tiernan, Roscommon county manager.
He used the 17th Douglas Hyde conference to make a plea for extra funding to meet the obligations of the Official Languages Act.
Mr Tiernan said he had grown up in an era when the language was compulsory, something which had got people's backs up.
He hoped that the element of compulsion in the new legislation would not be "hammered home" and brought to bear on public bodies to the extent that rates would have to be increased or extra funding got from the public in order to comply.
"My message is that if you are going to make something compulsory - and it is - you have an obligation to make sure that the means are there, without having to hurt people in order to comply," he said.
He added that there was a willingness to comply with the legislation and provide bilingual versions of reports and documents.
He pointed out that Hyde, a founder of Conradh na Gaeilge as well as the first President of Ireland, who was born in Roscommon, had a great understanding of the link between the language and the State.
Mr Tiernan was one of a number of speakers to address the conference on the links between the arts and politics.
Labour TD Mr Michael D. Higgins who launched the weekend conference and read from his new collection of poetry, arrived on crutches having recently undergone surgery.
He avoided making any reference to the next presidential election.
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