Bill promoting the use of Gaelic is killed in Northern Ireland’s Assembly
DUBLIN, IRELAND — Protestants in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government Tuesday vetoed a Catholic plan to introduce a bill promoting Gaelic.
The little-spoken language is promoted by Northern Ireland’s Catholics to emphasize their Irish identity on this overwhelmingly English-speaking island.
But Culture Minister Edwin Poots, a Protestant, told the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast that an Irish Language Act -- an idea proposed by the British and Irish governments in the 2006 peace proposals -- would be expensive and divisive.
Roman Catholic leaders then accused the Protestant side of reneging on the 2006 proposals.
In Northern Ireland, only Catholic schools teach Gaelic. About 4,000 students go to primarily Gaelic-speaking schools, which Poots said got $23 million in taxpayer funds last year.
The envisioned Irish Language Act would require government agencies and courts to deliver services in Gaelic -- a program Poots said would snowball unpredictably in cost.
He noted that no Catholic lawmaker was prepared to specify what current spending should be cut to fund the project.
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