Measures to promote the use of Irish and curtailing English are fair and balanced, Éamon Ó Cuív tells Liam Reid

Éamon Ó Cuív says the Official Languages Act limits access to services in Irish from State agencies, rather than increasing it. He also claims that road signage rules outlawing the use of English versions of Gaeltacht placenames would actually reduce confusion, contrary to what critics have claimed.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Ó Cuív confirmed that no detailed costings of the law had been made before it was introduced, but maintained there were no financial implications for the Exchequer as any extra costs had to be met by the individual bodies from their existing corporate budgets.

The Minister for Gaeltacht Affairs said it would also have been "hypocritical" of the Government to have campaigned for official working status in the European Union for Irish, which was approved last Monday, and not to have brought in measures in Ireland.

Mr Ó Cuív said that if the legislation had not been introduced, court decisions could have conferred even greater rights of access to services in Irish.

"There is a stronger case to be made that it was an Act of delimitation and definition, because all those rights were [ already] there," he said. "Unless it's in a plan agreed by us, you don't have a right to walk into the counter of a Government office and demand services through Irish. That's the first time we've said that."

Describing the Act as "coherent, enforceable and balanced", he said the cost of legislation had not been estimated, but that there were no financial implications for the Exchequer as the additional costs had to be met by the existing budgets of institutions.

"There are costs associated with it, but that was the constitutional choice of the Irish people when they adopted in the Constitution that the Irish language would be afforded official status.

"It's a question of people just managing their corporate budgets," he said of the legislation, adding that organisations could take measures to reduce overall costs, for example by publishing documents on the internet only. He said he received many reports in English from public bodies that he and others did not read.

"There are so many, I might pick one or two out, and the rest, unfortunately, either go into library - where I don't think too many people read them - or hit my waste paper basket. And that's unfortunate and the State should look at that issue."

He also believed the extra costs would be low in any case. New regulations he plans to bring in requiring Irish on all signage and advertising of bodies covered under the Act would be reasonable, he said.

"We have tried to strike a reasonable balance, and the prescriptive requirements of the Act are very small. The things that could have put huge cost and difficulty are done on a plan by plan basis."

The Minister also defended the introduction of new rules on road signage for Gaeltacht placenames, which can be in Irish only, even if they are outside the Gaeltacht.

Acknowledging that Irish-only road signs - which have been in Gaeltacht areas since 1970 - had created confusion, he said he would have faced opposition if he had decided to allow English to be used on signs in the Gaeltacht.

There had to be consistency nationally, he said, and therefore the rule for Gaeltacht names had to be extended.

He had also brought in a bilingual requirement for maps, which meant that tourists would be able to identify the English and Irish versions of a placename.

"Now when [ a tourist] sees the sign for An Daingean, his map will already have told him that an Daingean and Dingle are the same place, and he won't be confused."

Mr Ó Cuív also rejected suggestions that general Government policy towards the Irish language, especially in Gaeltacht areas, was failing.

He said research by his late father, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin, identified that there were 35,000 daily Irish speakers in the 1950s in Connemara. This was the same as the number recorded in the 2002 census.

"The amazing thing is the incredible resilience about the Irish language." There had been a major change of attitude towards the language outside the Gaeltacht, he claimed.

"I grew up in Dublin - you'd be much more likely to find Irish in Dublin 4 now than you would in 1950."