Madam - It now seems likely that from next May the EU will have twenty official languages and Irish, the oldest, and some would say the richest of all European languages will not be included. In May, EU law will be amended to insert Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene and Maltese, which has circa 380,000 speakers, something similar to Irish.
This means that from May next, all official documents will be translated only into the twenty official languages and will not be available in Irish in Ireland.
Furthermore, whenever job opportunities arise within the EU they will be open to EU citizens who can speak two or more official languages, thereby putting Irish citizens at a disadvantage as Irish will be disregarded.
For each new official language the EU will employ 110 new translators and 40 new interpreters. If Irish were included, such opportunities would also be open to Irish people.
The funding for all this will come from the EU translation budget, which currently costs €2 per person and to which Ireland will be contributing in any event.
The EU is based on diversity of different cultures, which makes multi-lingualism essential to the European project. As the influence of the EU in our everyday lives grows, any language excluded from EU business will come under great pressure and its future will be in doubt. It can be both realistic and practical to have Irish as an official EU language as EU institutions may stipulate in their rules of procedure which official languages are to be used in specific cases. In practice, the normal day-to-day working languages used, for example, in the European Commission are English, French and increasingly German.
Relay languages are used in the translation of languages of small nations, for example Maltese is translated into English and then to Slovene and vice-versa. Such an arrangement would address the practical difficulties of translation for Irish.
Next month the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern,takes over the role of EU President. It is vital that he now considers the future role of the Irish language in Europe. - Yours, etc.,
MATT NOLAN, Ballagh, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.