IRISH LANGUAGE summer colleges will face closure if cutbacks are made to the money allocated to the people who accommodate the students, it was stated in Connemara yesterday.
The mná tí, the women who supplement their family income by taking students into their homes in the Gaeltacht each summer, claim that cutbacks proposed in the McCarthy report would make it impossible for them to accommodate the teenagers.
Over 28,000 teenage boys and girls spend several weeks in Irish-speaking areas of Galway, Mayo, Donegal, Cork, Kerry, Waterford and Meath each year.
The teenagers improve their Irish and also immerse themselves in the cultural heritage of the Gaeltacht.
Some of the Irish colleges have limited on-site accommodation for students but the vast majority of them stay in family homes, cared for by almost 700 mná tí.
The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Éamon Ó Cuív, said the Government was committed to the Irish language and that a decision had not yet been made to reduce the subvention to the mná tí.
He said suggestions in the McCarthy report were just proposals and that none of the decisions would be taken in isolation.
The Minister confirmed he would publish the 20-year strategy for the Irish language soon and any decision by Government would take account of all the implications for the language.
“Given the economic state of the country, there will be cutbacks and nobody will be unaffected. But we will decide on what is best for the people of the country as a collective in Government,” he said.
But a gathering of about 400 mná tí in Furbo, Co Galway, yesterday heard that Irish summer colleges would not survive if local families were no longer willing or able to accommodate students.
The McCarthy report proposes a halt to the subvention of €10.50 per student per day that is paid by the exchequer to all 670 mná tí.
Comhchoiste na gColáistí Samhraidh (Concos), the umbrella organisation for the colleges, said the cutbacks would have a devastating impact on Gaeltacht communities.
Spokeswoman Caitlín Neachtain said National Lottery funding of €2 per student per day, which went towards the employment of teachers, had been withdrawn in the budget last October and that the loss of the subvention to the mná tí would be the last straw for many of them.
She said that about 2,000 people were employed as managers, principals, teachers and cinnirí (leaders) each summer. That was in addition to 670 mná tí and 200 bus drivers.