Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With the recent enactment of the Gaeltacht Act 2012, the Gaeltacht is being given a new definition based on language criteria as opposed to geographical areas, as has been the case. Draft orders and regulations associated with the language planning criteria prescribed in section 12 of the Act have been prepared and circulated to the relevant Departments, in accordance with the legal requirement to do so, with a view to completing this process by June 2013. The Act also gives a statutory basis to the language planning process in the Gaeltacht, under which language plans will be prepared at community level for specific language planning areas. This approach puts the communities at the heart of the language planning process since it gives them the opportunity to take ownership of their own plan in their own community.

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