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Conor D McGuinness Demands Answers on Irish Language Plan

Conor D McGuinness Demands Answers on Irish Language Plan

Conor D McGuinness raised questions about the Irish language plan, its early implementation and the need to involve young people and city-centre communities. He pressed for clarity on who shaped the plan, how it will reach Irish speakers, and what practical steps will follow.

Concise summary


Conor D McGuinness set out concerns about the rollout of the Irish language plan and its impact on young people and urban communities. He asked specific questions about the roles played during the plan's early years and whether the national policy will deliver access and inclusion for the majority of Irish speakers.

Key concerns and questions


He focused on accountability and understanding: what role did officials and patrons play in the first phase of the plan, and how realistic were the initial expectations at a national level? McGuinness emphasised the importance of answering these questions to evaluate the plan's effectiveness.

Youth and urban access


The speech highlighted how many young people working from home or based in city centres lack access to language resources and community supports. He argued that language policy must be attentive to everyday realities so that Gaelic and Irish remain living languages for a new generation.

Conor D McGuinness — shot from speech: Conor D McGuinness Demands Answers on Irish Language Plan (24.03.2026)

Implementation and next steps


Conor D McGuinness called for a more cohesive process, noting a new plan for the city centre and a desire to sit down and work closely with stakeholders. He urged timely follow-up and clearer communication so that the language plans can respond to the questions raised by communities and speakers.

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Transcript
Thank you Cathaoirleach, and thank you to all of you for coming today. And it's important that this story comes out after a couple of years, especially when it comes to the first few years of your career, and that's the end of the Irish as a language, which is a very important language in the world. And I have to say, Eileen, the story you told and the story you told, it was very important and important. And I suppose that term, the term of the language, that you chose, as you said, your own language, but any Irish language in the world, it's very important and very important. And I don't think that the story is more important than the stories, and I don't think that the story is more important than the stories. With any other story, I don't think these people would get it right as Irish people. I have a couple of questions, because we understand that in this room, I suppose, the story is more important than the story, but in order to get a better understanding, I suppose, and to understand the language plan, and to really understand the language plan, what role did you play in the first half of the story, and what role did you play in the first half of the language plan? How difficult and difficult would it have been to write this story with the initial expectation, at the national level, of the people and the people of Ireland, of the people and the people of Ireland, as you said, the majority of Irish speakers. Is that a long-term plan to put in place now, the national policy to put in place? And what kind of understanding did you have at the time with the patron, or the creator, to get this question answered? So, was that patron different to the Irish speaker? Was he similar to the Irish speaker, and was he different from other speakers? So, that's a couple of questions, and I'll leave it up to you to answer. Thank you. Patron, we're back now, as we were with the speakers, and we're going to take the next few minutes to answer, for example, it's important to me that young people, the young people who work in the city centre, the people in London, the older people, the older people, and the women in the city, to be involved with the stories. Because the cost of taking the stories, and the most important stories, has to do with the stories, the stories of the people, the stories of the people. There's a lot of that on the people themselves, when these young people are working from home. You can see, I think, you can see, I'm not sure if you can see, that there's a lot of people going to work from home every day, to work here in Dublin, and on the days when the people themselves are working, there are other young people in the city centre, working from home, on their own, to make their living at home. And there's a lot of that on the people. There's a lot of stories in the city centre, there's a lot of stories in general, that these people don't have to deal with every day, so there's a lot of that. Looking at the language plans, as you know, there was a plan for the language plans, there's not a lot of young people who have access to the language plans, we have to, this is my role, to have access to the language plans, to be here, to support it, to listen to it, to answer these questions. There's not much else to do, looking at that. We're now working on a new plan for the city centre. I'm hoping, we're a bit late now, seven years from now, but I hope that we'll have a more cohesive process, that we'll be working together, with the language plans, to make sure that the main questions are answered by the language plans, and there's no bigger or more important question than the questions they ask. So I'm hoping, that we'll be able to sit down, when this is over, to sit down more closely to answer these questions, and that we'll be able, as you said yourself, by the end of the year, to be very close to these questions, and that we'll be able to go back to the language plans to see that we're working on this, and that we'll be able to sit down more closely to answer these questions. Thank you. Eileen, do you want to add anything? I'd like to add something else. It makes me think, for example, you're playing with young people, and Gaelic isn't a language for everyone, and they want to be part of everything, and the clubs are wonderful, especially from Gaelic, and everything is about them. And at some point, you're thinking, will they all be a little bit on the side, or will they all be a little bit out of the way, or will they all be a little bit out of the way? There's no chance for the people to be on the side, and that makes me think, when I think about my friends, for example, and how much they love the language, and how much hope, and how much confidence the people who speak Gaelic have, and the Gaelic language that they speak, and the Gaelic language that they speak, and the fact that they're so passionate about it, and the fact that they're asking so many questions about the language. Just to finish, I'd like to ask you, there's a new play that's coming out with Creed's Productions, and I'm interested in that play, because it's about the brain-graph that was created and the brain-graph that was created between the three of them, and how important those people are now, and how important they are to the future of Dubai, the brain-graph and the brain-graph, and I'd like to hear from the people in the audience what they'd like to hear from me. I'd like to start with a question for David here, and how do you deal with the people around you? They're important people, people who are important to the Gaelic language in the Baltic states, so there's a big gap between them and you, and the importance of being friendly to people, to people in the city, to parents, to parents, that's important, and you don't do that in the cities or on the streets,