MINISTER FOR Gaeltacht Affairs Pat Carey has rejected Opposition claims the Government is anti-democratic in introducing legislation which will postpone elections to Údarás na Gaeltachta for up to two years.

The one-paragraph Údarás na Gaeltachta (Amendment) Bill provides that the time between elections to the Gaeltacht authority be increased from 5½ to 7½ years. Under existing legislation elections must be held by October 1st.

Fine Gael and Sinn Féin opposed the Bill while the Labour Party abstained when the vote was called. The legislation was passed by 58 to 46 votes.

Elections to the 20-member authority can be delayed until October 2012.

Seventeen members of the authority are elected while three are nominated by the Minister.

The authority was established in 1980 to improve the economic, social and cultural development of Gaeltacht areas.

Mr Carey said the Government was preparing more comprehensive legislation to restructure the authority as envisaged in the 20-year strategy. It suggests that the authority be placed on a statutory footing as a national language agency.

Mr Carey said it would be “wasteful of State resources” to hold the elections when, perhaps a year later, the whole operation of the authority would be completely changed and new elections would have to be held.

He said it was better to wait for the reforms and then hold the elections.

Fine Gael Gaeltacht spokesman Frank Feighan said the Government “is merely putting off another election” under the guise of “considering the future structure of Údarás na Gaeltachta and its preparation of a strategy for the Irish language”.

It was “anti-democratic to deny people in the Gaeltacht an opportunity to elect representatives to the body charged with steering the Gaeltacht regions out of this economic crisis”.

Labour spokesman Brian O’Shea said “it’s not worth having a new board for this short time” before a newly structured authority was in place, but he criticised the Government for creating the problem. He called for an annual debate at the start of each Dáil year on the Irish language to discuss whether targets for the year had been met.

Sinn Féin spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh said the delay was “anti-democratic” and the Government wanted to “postpone democracy for two more years”.

He said “the work hadn’t been done” on a previous occasion in 1999 and the authority’s term was extended through legislation by six months.