Ms Caroline Phelan:

That is it. The function of the development plan is to facilitate and be a catalyst. Our prime function is not to monitor the usage of the Irish language. It is a shared role as well. No single body can deliver it and that comes across from publications. It is shared between education, arts and culture and between Galway city, as a Galway city corporate body, and even our chamber of commerce. There is a very receptive environment to promote it as much as possible within that realm, because it is also seen as quite attractive economically. It gives us a distinctiveness from a tourist viewpoint.

The other point is sustainability. It is not just for function as the Gaeltacht main service town. It is very important for us to continue and maintain the success and expansion of the city. One of the main projects, which was brought at a previous meeting attended by my colleagues Liam Blake and Ailish Bhreathnach, was the cross-party support for projects such as the N6 in terms of accessibility. That was one of the projects taken out. That is a strategic objective within the development plan. The logic behind that was not to alleviate congestion within the city, it was also to give access to the greater County Galway as well, and access in both directions.

Having strategic objectives to provide for, we have certain zones for community and infrastructure as I said, previously, with regard to education. We have policies that promote education and especially with regard to NUI Galway. We have a facilitating policy environment that allows for sustainability, as opposed to the idea of monitoring. The point is about how the language is sustained and expanded. There is a multiplicity of actions that make that happen and a multiplicity of challenges with respect to that. It is not the exclusive realm of the land use plan to do that, but it is the objective of the plan to facilitate and sustain the heritage associated with it.

As Ms Coleman has referenced, with regard to the environment for facilitating culture and arts, we deal with events licences for various things such as Macnas, which has an aspect with regard to Irish culture embedded in it. We facilitate other festivals by providing facilities, as Ms Coleman said. We provide park and ride infrastructure, etc., for all the festivals that happen through the year. Many of them are embedded in our own distinctive culture on that basis.

We can measure to some degree, such as the additional visibility of signage that is there with regard to the Irish language. We can measure that in terms of how many developments are constructed per year and it is a given that all of them are in the same language. Our colleagues in Gaillimh le Gaeilge are probably better at the bilingualism and the commercial aspect as well because not all of it comes within the realm of coming in for planning consent. They can create an encouraging environment and also have the translation capacity as well.