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Agriculture chiefs ordered to release language policy document </h1>
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The name of fisheries boat 'Banríon Uladh' was changed to 'Queen of Ulster'</figcaption>
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Connla Young
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<time class="gmail-lancio-datetime-string" datetime="12-02-2018 01:00">
12 February, 2018 01:00</time>
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<h2 class="gmail-title">Topics</h2>
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<li class="gmail-"><a href="http://www.irishnews.com/tags/CAJ">CAJ</a></li>
<li class="gmail-"><a href="http://www.irishnews.com/tags/Daniel-Holder">Daniel Holder</a></li>
<li class="gmail-"><a href="http://www.irishnews.com/tags/FOI">FOI</a></li>
<li class="gmail-"><a href="http://www.irishnews.com/tags/Michelle-McIlveen">Michelle McIlveen</a></li>
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<div class="gmail-related-extra__caption">Michelle McIlveen</div>
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<p>A STORMONT department which claimed to have a draft ‘single
language policy' has apologised over its failure to confirm when it was
created.</p><p>The development came after the Information Commissioner
ordered officials at the Department of Agriculture, Environment and
Rural Affairs (DAERA) to provide a copy of its policy to the Committee
on the Administration of Justice.</p><p>The Freedom of Information
request came after former DUP minister Michelle McIlveen controversially
ordered the name of a fisheries protection vessel to be changed from
the Irish ‘Banríon Uladh' to its English language version ‘Queen of
Ulster' in 2016.</p><p>She was later asked to explain the move in an
assembly question saying that “DAERA is a new department with a fresh
identity and logo and adopts a single language policy….”.</p><p>When later asked for a copy of the policy by the CAJ the department initially did not respond.</p><p>It
subsequently issued a refusal notice after the Information
Commissioner's Office (ICO) intervened, claiming it was entitled to
apply an exemption.</p><div class="gmail-banner-container gmail-text-center"></div><p>The department later confirmed to the ICO that it held a “draft DAERA language policy”.</p><p>In
a letter to the CAJ the commission reveals that while its request for
information was made on September 2016, withheld information
subsequently provided to the ICO was dated November 2016.</p><p>Asked to
confirm if it held a draft version of any of the documents at the date
of request, the department said the information provided was the only
infomration it held relevant to the request.</p><p>The department then
apologised to the ICO saying “that it was unable to state with certainty
when the information was created, but confirmed that it was first saved
to its electronic records management system in November 2016”.</p><p>The
commission went to say: “In this case the commissioner cannot be
certain whether or not the requested information was in fact held at the
time of the request of 30 September”.</p><p>The commissioner suggested that CAJ resubmit its freedom of information request.</p><p>The ICO has also said that “in the absence of a minister to approve or amend the policy, it remains in draft form”.</p><p>Deputy
director of the CAJ Daniel Holder said: "It is strange that the
department doesn't know when it started to draft the policy and the only
records it has are after the minister's statement and our request."</p><p>"An
English-only language policy was never going to be compatible with
human rights obligations and the department should not have withheld the
documents, we welcome the decision by the Information commissioner that
they should now be released,” he said.</p><p>A spokesperson said: “The Department is considering the ICO ruling.”</p></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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