A chara, - Belinda McKeon (Arts, July 9th) accuses me of tending to "descend into petty, obstructive rants" when pressing amendments to the Arts Bill in the Dáil recently.
The amendments I was asking the Minister for Arts, John O'Donoghue to adopt were an acknowledgement of the constitutional position that "the Irish language as the national language is the first official language". The amendments were in fact reflecting the thinking behind another piece of legislation passing through the Dáil at the same time, the Official Languages Bill. Indeed, the amendments referred to by your correspondent had the support of the other opposition parties.
The duty of An Comhairle Ealaíona should be to promote the arts, through the two official languages at least, and it is regrettable that the Minister did not accept the amendments in question and that the new Comhairle Ealaíona would have been the front-runner among public bodies to take on the role that the Constitution had intended for the State in promoting the Irish language through all its activities. It is a pity that it is only this year, 82 years after the founding of the State, that the initiation of a strategy is beginning to emerge, through the recently passed Official Languages Bill, a Bill of course which has yet to take effect.
Seeking to ensure that the council members would have sufficient Irish to carry out their business in Irish as well as whatever other language they choose, (presumably, in the main, English, but who's to say - as Belinda points out Ireland may well be "even more culturally diverse") is not obstructive but progressive when one approaches it from the point of view of a native Irish speaker. In France I would presume that the Arts Council equivalent would carry out its work in the State's "first official language". I cannot see why we in Ireland have this inferiority complex about our national language. It is precisely because of blinkered attitudes such as those of Ms McKeon, by equating demands for language rights with "obstructive rants", that we don't have the desirable scale of fluency in our national language.
The Arts Bill will hopefully play an important role in the promotion of all arts in Ireland and, hopefully also, when a new Arts Council is selected, they will be mindful of the important role with regard to the Irish language that they must also play. - Is mise,
AENGUS Ó SNODAIGH, TD,
Teach Laighean,
Baile Átha Cliath 2.