Dr. Aodh?n Mac Cormaic:

On the language planning process and the €1 million underspend, it is a demand-led process. It is very important that the money is there when communities are ready to produce their plans and ready to go on implementation. A lot of the first set of plans that were approved five or six years ago came from the very strong web of communities that were ready to go and ready to get out of the traps.

Some of the later plans that were approved were mainly from the weaker Gaeltacht areas where the language is not as prominent or widely spoken as it is in stronger areas. In those cases, it took a lot of facilitation by Údarás na Gaeltachta to get lead organisations established, and groups and people working together, where the language would not be as strong, such as in the likes of the GAA and soccer clubs and that. It was very important that a lot of facilitation work went on there. Over the Covid period, that did not happen as quickly as we expected.