LOCAL AUTHORITY tenants in the west Kerry Gaeltacht are being offered a course to improve their Irish as well as their housing and job prospects.
The course, the first of its kind to involve tourism agency Fáilte Ireland, has so far attracted 18 participants, about half of whom have little or no knowledge of Irish. One of them is French.
Priority is given to Irish language speakers in allocating local authority houses in the Kerry Gaeltacht regions, and all large private developments in these areas must be accompanied by linguistic impact assessments.
A number of holiday home developments have been turned down because they would dilute the language and culture of the area since language clauses would be unworkable in cases where residents were not permanent.
The “Tenants’ Irish/Tourism Course”, which was officially launched at the weekend in the museum in Ballyferrier, is being organised by Fáilte Ireland along with Irish language agencies and Kerry County Council.
According to the council’s press officer, the Kerry county development plan sets out to preserve the linguistic heritage of the Gaeltacht in its housing strategy, but “a vacuum” had developed where there was little opportunity for those with little Irish living in local authority houses to improve their language skills so they could integrate better into the community.
Fáilte Ireland’s input will be to provide a course on food and beverage “as Gaeilge” and this should make it easier for people to find employment.
Nine tenants, including one French national, have already started and these will be joined in the spring on the tourism part of the course by an equal number with good Irish, the spokesman said.