Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 8, line 14, to delete “Commission” and substitute “Coimisiún”.

I would like to see the legislation amended to delete the word “Commission” and substitute that of “Coimisiún” in its place. This would require amending the Bill in 529 instances so, for today's purposes, we have included a simple amendment to section 2 definitions.

The role of the proposed Coimisiún na Meán in the governance and regulation of media cannot be underestimated in terms of its importance for the future of the Irish language. Sinn Féin believes this ought to be reflected in the Bill through a reinforced Gaelic identity for the body. While it is welcome that the State body is given an Irish language name in legislation as "Coimisiún na Meán", it is subsequently referred to exclusively throughout the Bill as the Commission, whose members are only to be known as commissioners. In popular discourse and debate, the agency is already being referred to as the media commission before it is even established. We know from an tÚdarás um Ard-Oideachas, which refers to itself almost exclusively in all branding as the Higher Education Authority and the HEA, despite having only an Irish name in law, that State agencies will revert to self-anglicising if provided with any opportunity to do so and this further detaches the organisation from its responsibilities to the Irish language.

The recently passed Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021 sets out in section 9D that the names of new State agencies should be in Irish only and branding should put Irish to the fore. It is, therefore, perplexing and disappointing that perhaps the first new State agency created by the same Department that gave us the official languages Act chooses to emphasise English language titles and descriptions since its enactment. Consistency would require the coimisiún to be called just that throughout and that its membership would referred to as coimisinéirí. By reinforcing the Gaelic identify of the body in this way, not only are we adhering to the commitments of a State whose first official language is Irish, and increasing the visibility and helping to normalise Irish in public life, both of which are positives in and of themselves, we are also reinforcing the fact that at its core this commission will ultimately be responsible for monitoring, adherence and implementing language conditions on broadcasters and service providers, in addition to answering complaints and demands from the Irish-speaking community.