NI Executive faces third legal action over failure to deliver Irish language strategy

The Stormont executive is facing a third legal action in a decade over its failure to bring forward an Irish language strategy.

News of the fresh court action came as Irish language advocacy group Conradh na Gaeilge gave evidence on Thursday to Stormont’s communities committee.

MLAs heard allegations that the latest hold-up lay with DUP Communities Minister Gordon Lyons, who has declined in writing to meet the group on three occasions since the restoration of the institutions in February last year.

Mr Lyons, who has spent this week in Washington in an effort to “strengthen cultural and historical links between Northern Ireland and the USA”, has in recent weeks been criticised for his lack of engagement with the GAA.

GAA president Jarlath Burns said last month that the association was “operating in a very hostile environment” in relation to the DUP and its lack of support for the Casement Park re-development project.

Mr Lyons has rejected the criticism.

The communities committee heard about the continuing funding crisis at Foras na Gaeilge, the cross-border Irish language promotion body set up after the Good Friday Agreement.

“It is incredibly disappointing that the minister has, in recent days, once again refused to meet with us,” the group’s advocacy manager Conchúr Ó Muadaigh told MLAs.

“Given the urgency around the current funding crisis, with many community groups facing huge uncertainty, we believe this should be a priority for the minister and his department.”

• The committee also heard the Conradh na Gaeilge representatives’ frustration at the lack of progress on an Irish language strategy.

The group revealed that it is planning a fresh legal challenge against the Executive Office, over its persistent failure to produce an Irish language strategy.

While First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little Pengelly’s department is ultimately responsible for adopting the strategy, responsibility for developing it lies with Mr Lyons’ department.

Mr Ó Muadaigh said the legal duty to develop a strategy “has been outstanding for almost 20 years”.

“The co-design work triggered by the New Decade New Approach Agreement began in 2020, and was to be completed within six months,” he said.

“No strategy should take over five years to compile – those delays are simply unacceptable.”

He said Conradh na Gaeilge had decided to begin new legal proceedings in what he termed a “genuine attempt to bring this long overdue legal duty to completion with the introduction of the strategy”.

“We cannot simply wait around any longer,” he said.

The group has previously brought two successful legal challenges against TEO over the absence of an Irish language strategy.

In 2017, the High Court found found that the ongoing failure contravened the 1998 Northern Ireland Act, and again in 2022 when Mr Justice Scoffield ruled that the executive was continuing to breach a legal obligation to adopt an Irish language strategy.

A statement from the Department for Communities said during a recent appearance before the committee, Mr Lyons said work on the strategy was progressing and that the co-design groups and expert panels had completed draft strategies and action plans.

“Individual departments will consider this work and revert with actions and the cost of such actions,” the statement said.