Mon Mar 19 14:20:12 UTC 2018

 Agriculture officials flagged up language obligations to DUP minister The
name of fisheries boat 'Banríon Uladh' was changed to 'Queen of Ulster'

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Connla Young
19 March, 2018 01:00
Topics

   - Daniel Holder <https://www.irishnews.com/tags/Daniel-Holder>
   - Michelle McIlveen <https://www.irishnews.com/tags/Michelle-McIlveen>

<https://www.irishnews.com/picturesarchive/irishnews/irishnews/2018/03/18/132922361-148d762b-2196-4873-a6f0-d88ce4cc5c4c.jpg>
Michelle McIlveen

A FORMER DUP minister was told by officials of her department’s obligation
to recognise Irish and Ulster-Scots months after she claimed it had adopted
“single language policy”.

Details emerged after the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural
Affairs (DAERA) was forced to provide documents, including a copy of its
draft language policy, to the Committee on the Administration of Justice
(CAJ).

The documents reveal that officials reminded Michelle McIlveen of her
department’s obligations to minority languages under its own equality
scheme and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages.

Ms 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.

The boat was originally named by then Sinn Féin agriculture minister
Michelle Gildernew after it was bought in 2010.

Asked to explain the move, Ms McIlveen said that “DAERA is a new department
with a fresh identity and logo and adopts a single language policy.”

The department had previously refused to provide a copy of the draft
language policy document to CAJ until ordered to hand it over by the
Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) earlier this year.

DAERA has since 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”.

The draft policy states that “for the administration of its functions the
principal language of (DAERA) is English” but also makes provision for the
use of Irish and Ulster-Scots.

However, the draft policy was not implemented by Ms McIlveen before the
collapse of the assembly in January 2017.

CAJ deputy director Daniel Holder said: "In this submission officials
correctly and professionally set out to the minister legal and broader
advice that shows why you can't have a 'single language policy', not least
because of duties on the department through its equality scheme and the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

"We are owed an explanation from the minister as to why she then did not
sign off on a policy that met basic legal minimum requirements before
leaving office."

A spokesman for DAERA said: "We will not be commenting further on this
matter."

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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