The Government’s 20-year strategy for the Irish language was in its final stages of preparation, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said today after the 13th British-Irish Council Summit held in St Helier, Jersey.
He told a press conference that Minister for Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív, who accompanied him to Jersey for the Summit, was putting the final touches to the report.
The issue was discussed by a Cabinet subcommittee this week and the report could be completed before Christmas and ready for publication in the New Year, the Taoiseach said, speaking in Irish.
"Indigenous, Minority and Lesser-Used Languages" were the main theme of the Summit.
The council was established under the terms of the Belfast Agreement and its membership is comprised of the British and Irish governments, the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the British crown dependencies of the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.
In a briefing paper for the Summit meeting, Mr Ó Cuív said “with respect to urban areas, my Department has in recent years provided funding to facilitate the establishment of a number of Irish language social and cultural centers in the main urban areas".
“The continued development of such centres is expected to be one of the key components of the Government’s 20-year Strategy for the Irish language which is currently under consideration to which An Taoiseach referred earlier".
“Centres such as these have the potential to nuture new language communities in urban settings and give our languages a new position as living community languages in our cities,” Mr Ó Cuív said.
In a joint communiqué after the meeting, the council said that halting the decline in communities with a high-density of minority-language speakers was, “a crucial target in various national strategies tasked with language planning at a community level”.
The council also, “noted and acknowledged the benefits in sharing knowledge, ideas and best practice and the diversity in approaches to community language planning”.
The Summit was also attended by former Northern Ireland secretary, now Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain, representing the British Government; Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan (attending his last Summit before retirement) and heads of administration from the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey.