Opinion

`One for me, one for you' comfort zone risks obscuring Irish language debate

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Irish speakers gather at Stormont calling for an Irish Language Act Picture Mal McCann.
Irish speakers gather at Stormont calling for an Irish Language Act Picture Mal McCann. Irish speakers gather at Stormont calling for an Irish Language Act Picture Mal McCann.

IT suits Sinn Féin and the DUP to transform calls for an Irish language act into debate on a "standalone act" verses a "culture act" - a distinction based on the inclusion of Ulster-Scots.

Both parties are now back in the `one for me, one for you' comfort zone that has underpinned every deal between them. In terms of a language or culture act - which could be the key to restoring devolution - this risks obscuring important debate about its content.

Contrary to some impressions, Northern Ireland already has a well-developed language policy.

Irish and Ulster-Scots were both recognised in the Good Friday Agreement under an explicitly European model, via reference to the Council of Europe's Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Because Europe is beset by language disputes, including languages as contrived as Ulster-Scots, the Council of Europe and the EU both take a surprisingly dim view of linguistic politicking. They prefer provision to be based on need, linked to the number and concentration of native speakers.

As Northern Ireland had no official Gaeltacht areas at the time and the Council of Europe could find no native Ulster-Scots speakers at all, provision defaulted to `cultural interest' mode - with the British government promising to encourage Irish-language education and broadcasting in particular and to promote the language in general, as opposed to treating it as a primary means of communication.

These promises were kept, with money and legislation. The need-based model was also confirmed in a high-profile 2009 legal challenge on the use of Irish in court.

However, there was a clear break with this thinking in the 2006 St Andrews agreement. The act it promised was to be based on the law in Wales, which concentrates on providing Welsh-language public services to large, concentrated numbers of native speakers.

Copying this over to Northern Ireland would effectively have dumped the European model of fulfilling need and moved to supplying demand - providing official communication in Irish to people who wanted it.

During the brief period in 2006 when the Northern Ireland Office moved to develop an act, a new debate emerged on how this would work, characterised as "rights-based" versus "scheme-based".

Under a rights-based act, everyone would have a right to access public services in Irish. Under a scheme-based act, which is the philosophy in Wales, every public body would have a duty to devise Irish language provision, although that might fall short of the bilingualism a rights-based approach inevitably implies.

This debate was forgotten in 2007 when devolution was restored and the DUP stopped the legislative process. Gerry Adams's recent statements on a "rights-based" new deal at Stormont could mean it has been resurrected.

In 2014, Sinn Féin culture minister Caral ni Chuilin introduced a draft Irish language act that moved debate on again, by envisaging a fully bilingual public sector as a valid demand in itself.

Ni Chuilin's bill is important because it is thought to have been placed back on the table unaltered in the current Stormont talks.

The challenging point it raises is about positive discrimination - how much preference should be given to Irish speakers in public sector recruitment?

The 2014 draft's equality impact assessment conceded it would discriminate against Protestants but essentially shrugged its shoulders on the matter.

Positive discrimination was used in the PSNI, of course, also to address what were considered valid political concerns.

Could reserving 10 per cent of all new jobs for Gaeilgeoiri, as proposed by Conradh na Gaeilge, ever be as grudgingly accepted as 50/50 police recruitment? It might guarantee jobs for the 2 per cent of children in Irish-medium education. However, would such complete state co-option be healthy for the language community? Would they be vulnerable to translation technology? These questions deserve to be considered.

Unionists sank Ni Chuilin's bill in the executive, predictably, but it was also opposed by Alliance on the issue of signage. Alliance supports a comprehensive languages act but felt Sinn Féin's plans for bilingual signs would create endless territorial rows over symbolism. The party had some moral authority on this position, after the loyalist intimidation its representatives had suffered during the flag protests.

Alliance now believes, rightly or wrongly, that Sinn Féin and the DUP need it back at the Department of Justice to restore the executive. So it might care to speak up once more on what it feels an act should contain.

Meanwhile, unionists should note that 20 years of stonewalling has not stopped this debate moving on without them.