A Chara, - Raidio na Life 102 has been broadcasting very successfully for six years now, serving the Irish-speaking community in Dublin. Listeners have become very familiar with it on this frequency. It was cleverly incorporated into the station's signal - "Raidio na Life 102 - beo". The IRTC has now decided to remove this frequency from Raidio na Life and give it to a commercial station instead.
As an Irish speaker and principal of an Irish-medium school, this disturbs me very much. Very little is done to meet the needs of Irish speakers, and if it is true to say "beatha teangan i a labhairt", it is also true that the life of a language depends on hearing it spoken, especially in the media of public communication. I have been involved with Raidio na Life since its foundation, first as a shareholder and later by producing and presenting a programme over the course of a year - on a voluntary basis, as are the majority of people who work in Raidio na Life. As a result, I appreciate very well the amount of work and the ongoing effort required to keep such an endeavour going.
Raidio na Life is run on a non-profit voluntary basis, mostly by young, enthusiastic people who love Irish. They have not enough funds to enable them easily to advertise their station on a different frequency. The future of the language depends on young people; for this reason, it would be a huge loss were anything to interfere with the progress of Raidio na Life. Therefore, I ask that every effort be made to see that the decision taken by the IRTC will be reversed. - Is mise,
An tSR. Catherine OP, Priomhoide, Scoil Chaitriona, Bothar Mobhi, Baile Atha Cliath 9.