Sir, – For those of us fortunate enough to be fluent in Ireland’s two native languages, it will come as a surprise to learn about “the cultural colonisation of the public realm by Irish” (Letters, May 11th).
This, it seems, arises from the “plethora of advertising in Irish by public bodies” in line with the provisions of the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021. This legislation stipulated that a minimum of 20 per cent of such advertising should be in Irish.
Given that this 20 per cent includes advertising in the Irish-language media, in practice it means that less than 20 per cent is expended in the English-language media.
It’s worth keeping in mind too that, in theory at least, this advertising shouldn’t involve any net extra cost for public bodies, as the statutory regulation refers to the percentage of their overall budgets for advertising. If this money wasn’t spent on Irish-language advertising, it would just result in the entire advertising budgets being spent on advertisements in English.
READ MORE
It hardly amounts to “the cultural colonisation of the public realm” by Ireland’s second spoken native language. – Yours, etc,
JOHN GLENNON,
Hollywood,
Co Wicklow.
