Gardaí criticised in Irish report

Irish Language Commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin has recorded a continuing rise in complaints about difficulties in dealing with State bodies through the first language.

The Department of Social Protection and the Garda Siochána are among bodies censured in the commissioner’s annual report published in Galway, while the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht was criticised for not producing an updated scheme for implementing the Official Languages Act.

The offices of the President and the Ombudsman are among those public bodies whose language schemes expired over three years ago.

An investigation by the language commissioner’s office found eight of nine gardaí assigned to service in Gaoth Dobhair in the Donegal Gaeltacht were not able to carry out their duties through Irish.

Mr Ó Cuirreáín’s office found the Garda Commissioner had failed to comply in this case with a provision of the Garda Síochána Act 2005. This provision requires members of the force stationed in the Gaeltacht to be sufficiently competent in Irish to enable them to use it with ease in carrying out their duties.

The inquiry was initiated in February 2011 after a native Irish speaker complained that he was unable to conduct his business through Irish with gardaí in Gaoth Dobhair.

The inquiry was temporarily set aside when Garda authorities increased to three the number of Irish speakers assigned to the station.

However, when no further progress was reported, the inquiry resumed and a formal finding of non-compliance was made by An Coimisinéir Teanga last December.

About half of the 734 new complaints filed last year came from Dublin city and county and some 21 per cent from Gaeltacht areas. The vast majority of complaints were resolved informally without resorting to statutory investigations, Mr Ó Cuirreáin said.

The Department of Social Protection is the focus of a special report laid by the language commissioner before the Houses of the Oireachtas, having failed to take corrective action when found in breach of statutory language provisions.

Two separate investigations found the department did not comply properly with statutory obligations to award bonus marks for proficiency in Irish and English in specific internal promotion competitions.

The future of Mr Ó Cuirreáin’s office has been under threat, following Government public sector reform proposals which recommended its merging with the Office of the Ombudsman.