DCAL Minister does not know what Irish Language Legislation would cost
20 June 2007
STATEMENT BY JIM ALLISTER MEP
"Last month I wrote to Minister Poots asking what costings had been done in respect of implementing the legislative options contained in the consultation proposals on the Irish Language Act over which he now presides. In a written reply the Minister has effectively conceded that no such costings have been conducted. In his letter all he can refer to is a section in the original December 2006 consultation document which gave some figures of what a dual language policy costs in Wales and the Republic of Ireland, but that document concedes that DCAL doesn't know what legislation in NI would cost.
Yet in March 2007 DCAL issued a further consultation on defined models of legislation, but now it emerges they still don't know what it would cost to implement any such model. Such costings ought to have been central to the consultation over which Minister Poots now presides. The fact that the department rushed to a further consultation without addressing this issue illustrates in itself just how flawed this whole process has become.
Is it not both reasonable and essential in evaluating options to know what each would cost? How can a balanced and fully informed decision otherwise be made? Yet, this is the careless and wasteful course upon which DCAL is set. As Minister, I suggest, it is Edwin Poots' obligation to take steps to rectify this untenable position. In my view that should be done by publicly accepting the consultation process was flawed and disavowing the consultation farce and legislative proposals which he inherited.
Sadly, to date, he shows no sign of doing so."
