Public meeting in west Belfast after Irish language youth club sees funding cut

A public meeting is due to take place in west Belfast this week in support of an Irish language youth and community organisation which has seen its funding cut.

Glór na Móna, which is based in the Upper Springfield area, said without the Education Authority funding five jobs will be lost, resulting in an “instant service closures in Belfast”.

The organisation, which has received funding from the EA since 2009 to deliver Irish Medium youth services, said the loss of funds would impact “significantly and disproportionately upon front line IM youth services, equating to loss of youth work jobs across the sector, and hundreds of hours of weekly face to face youth work delivery”.

Glór na Móna, which currently opens five nights a week and has 160 members, aged eight to 18, said it was informed by the EA that “funding would not be continuing from the 1st of April as a result of budget constraints”.

Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh , Director of Glór na Móna, said the organisation had been left “bitterly disappointed at this devastating decision”.

Mr Mac Ionnrachtaigh said the decision "effectively puts our 160 local young people out in the street with no alternative youth provision in the area for young Irish speakers.

“Our young people attend our club five nights a week and simply have nowhere else to go that provides informal learning opportunities through their own language in a safe, bespoke youth work sanctuary that facilitates social-language use,” he said.

"This decision flies in the face of the Department for Education’s statutory duty to ‘facilitate and encourage the development of IME’ that was enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.

"However, our young people, their parents and the wider west Belfast community will not accept this decision and the cavalier disregard shown to the rights of our young people.”

A public meeting in support of Glór na Móna will take place on Thursday at 7.30pm at its premises at Whiterock Close.

A spokeswoman for the Education Authority said: "We continue to support Irish Medium Youth Work and recognise the importance of Irish medium youth services across the region.

“Glor na Mona were funded previously under a legacy funding scheme which has been replaced in line with the Priorities for Youth policy,” she said.

“An extension to legacy funding was granted for one further year to allow the sector to prepare for the changes in funding. Glor na Mona will be able to apply for relevant funding under the new scheme”.