Offaly County Council has been heavily criticised over its failure to engage with the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga over its obligations under language rights legislation.
Details of an investigation which found the council had breached its statutory language obligations in relation to road signage under the Official Languages Act 2003 are outlined in the Coimisinéir Teanga’s annual report for last year, which was published on Thursday.
The council apologised “for its lack of action and complete disregard for a statutory investigation” following an investigation into complaints about the lack of Irish on road signs erected by it in Edenderry, Tullamore and Birr, Rónán Ó Domhnaill wrote in his final report as Coimisinéir Teanga.
These complaints were not difficult to resolve informally “if only appropriate input into the process had been received” from the council, Mr Ó Domhnaill wrote. He said he was “profoundly dissatisfied” with the council’s attitude and that it “failed to engage” with informal attempts to resolve complaints.
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“The council’s stance was worse still when a statutory investigation was initiated. Requests for information necessary to complete a statutory investigation were ignored repeatedly,” he wrote.
“I am not aware of any other public body which has shown such complete disregard for co-operation with this Office since the commencement of the Official Languages Act 2003.
“During my nine years as Coimisinéir Teanga, no other local authority, or indeed any other public body, to my knowledge, has been as dilatory and unresponsive in communicating with my Office as Offaly County Council during this investigation.”
Overall, the office received 600 complaints from the public last year, a decrease from the 727 complaints received in 2021.
One in every five complaints came from the Gaeltacht, and one in every four came from Co Dublin. Three of the five investigations completed by the office last year involved local authorities.
In addition to the investigation into Offaly County Council, the other investigations related to complaints against Cork County Council, Roscommon County Council, the HSE and Iarnród Éireann.
The office also reported an 81 per cent increase from public bodies seeking advice relating to their obligations under language legislation.
An Coimisinéir Teanga, whose role includes ensuring compliance by public bodies with statutory obligations under language legislation, said more than 2,100 participants attended information webinars last year.
“Of particular note,” the report said, was an 81 per cent increase, from 189 to 284, in the number of cases the office shared advice with public bodies regarding their obligations under the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021, which came into effect in 2022.
“A large portion” of the increase related to public bodies seeking advice about section 10A of the act which outlines responsibilities regarding advertising by public bodies.
Section 10A of the act requires that at least 20 per cent of advertising placed by all public bodies in any given year is placed through the medium of Irish and that at least 5 per cent of the public body’s annual advertising budget is also spent on Irish language media.
The report was written Mr Ó Domhnaill before his appointment earlier this year as media development commissioner with Coimisiún na Meán (Media Commission).
