A Sinn Féin Councillor has said people who live in the Gaeltacht should be able to hold a conversation in Irish and that he will not ‘apologise to anybody for demanding justice for Irish speakers’. 

A clause in the 2012 Gaeltacht Act mandates that a certain number of new homes in any housing development within the Gaeltacht must be allocated to Irish speakers. 

Currently that means that at least 66% of all houses in any new development should have at least one Irish speaker in it, which means they can speak Irish at B2 level - which means they should be able to hold a conversation as Gaeilge. 

However, new figures have shown that Kerry County Council has not once investigated breaches in the clause. 

On Newstalk Breakfast, Sinn Féin Councillor for Corca Dhuibhne (West Kerry & Milltown) Robert Brosnan said a B2 exam in Irish is “not very hard” to pass. 

“But the rule is there and linked to the rule, there's 15 years residency in regard to that,” he said. 

“So, it's a binding clause in planning permission, which is applied in our Gaeltacht areas.” 

Cllr Brosnan continued that the Irish language “has to be cherished” and people who live in the Gaeltacht “should be expected to be able to hold a conversation in Irish”. 

“It's where the roots of our language survive,” he said. 

“Pearse said that, ‘Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam’ - a country without a language is a country without a soul.

“When you live in a Gaeltacht area, you're privileged to live within the soul of Ireland. 

“You hear the echoes of our ancestors through the spoken word, which is thousands of years old; it's the oldest living language in Europe.” 

A sign in Irish language welcoming visitors to the Gaeltacht. Picture by: Alamy.com.

Cllr Brosnan added that given the precarious state of the language, with fewer and fewer native speakers in the Gaeltacht, the State must do more to ‘cherish and protect’ Irish. 

“I won't apologise to anybody for demanding justice for Irish speakers, because the rules are there,” he said. 

“I likened it to playing an all-Ireland final without a referee or linesmen or umpires - like it's just chaos. 

“And that's what's happening in the housing.”

Main image: A sign in Dingle. Picture by: Alamy.com.