The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuív, last night strongly criticised a decision by Kerry County Council planners to grant permission for a housing estate alongside a Gaeltacht village in the Dingle peninsula without including a language clause. Anne Lucey reports.
The clause was "crucial" to the survival of the Gaeltacht, Mr Ó Cuív said, but Kerry County Council had chosen to ignore it.
The Minister said the decision to grant permission for a development of 20 houses alongside the village of Baile an Fheirtéirigh went against traditional settlement patterns and would swamp the village.
"Traditionally villages were service centres, not settlement centres," Mr Ó Cuív said.
If Kerry County Council had continued with the traditional dispersed rural settlement and not zoned for residential developments, the problem would not arise.
"Even in a Gaeltacht area now the planners cannot accept the traditional settlement pattern," Mr Ó Cuív said.
However, the senior planner in Kerry County Council, Mr Tom Sheehy, an executive engineer, said that language clauses were simply unenforceable and unworkable. The council could not be expected to monitor who was buying private houses and then evict an owner for speaking English, he argued, adding that enforcing Irish speaking in the home was something the council cannot enforce.
"Our view is the absence of a national policy to address this issue," Mr Sheehy said.
Some 20 houses have been granted permission in Baile an Fheirtéirigh, one of the strongest Irish-speaking centres in the two Kerry Gaeltachts. The only language condition set down by the council, among 35 other conditions, is that the roads be named in Irish.
However, the Minister referred to a commitment in the plan "to ensure that any developments within the recognised Gaeltacht areas are of benefit to the Irish language and the Gaeltacht communities of the Dingle and Iveragh peninsulas". He indicated last night that he felt so strongly about it that he would be willing to enter a direct debate with council officials in Kerry on the matter.
"This is an absolutely crucial issue to several of the Gaeltachts. It needs a public forum."
The legislation (under the Planning Act, 2000) was there but there was an unwillingness to enforce it, he added.
Mr Donncha Ó hEallaithe, language activist, said the developers had been willing to enter into negotiations with the council on the language clause to prevent the properties from falling into non-Irish speaking hands.
A public meeting has been called in Ballyferriter on Tuesday night to hear the views of the community.