Ms Valerie Loughnane:

We have Irish language enurements attached to two or more houses in our Gaeltacht areas. Effectively, the reason for the enurement is to ensure that Irish speaking communities are protected and enhanced and that people would be in engaged in conducting their business and lives through the Irish language. The enurement clause is an Irish language enurement clause. The house or property would always have the clause that an Irish speaker or somebody with Irish would be occupying that house.

I understand what Senator Kyne is speaking about with respect to securing funding for mortgages for these houses, but we would have a position that if a person had purchased a house, had an Irish language enurement, qualified under our criteria in Galway County Council through an interview and so on, but found sometime into the future that they would have to dispose of that house for whatever reason, we would be and have been open to transferring that enurement to another Irish speaker in order to facilitate the sale of that house.

The idea behind the enurement is obviously to protect and enhance the Irish language. In essence, what we want to do is continue the restriction on the house with respect to the Irish language to facilitate Irish speakers, but we also acknowledge the fact that people have different situations throughout their lives and they may have to dispose of the property. We would allow the transfer of that enurement to another Irish speaker or somebody who qualifies under Irish language criteria in Galway County Council. I hope that gives some clarity to the question.