Grand Central Irish language signage not handled well by Stormont, commissioner says

The new Irish language commissioner, Pól Deeds, has said he does not think the Northern Ireland Executive has handled the situation with Irish language signage at Grand Central Station in Belfast “very well, or at all”.

The Stormont Infrastructure Minister, Sinn Féin’s Liz Kimmins, has been facing court action in a dispute with unionist politicians over the bilingual signage plans.

Work to introduce the signage at the station was paused in April due to the legal action.

On Friday, Mr Deeds said: “By its very existence, the office of the language commissioner takes it out of the political realm.”

Mr Deeds, the deputy chief executive of the cross-border body Foras na Gaeilge, was formally appointed to the post of Irish language commissioner at the end of October.

Speaking to Good Morning Ulster, Mr Deeds said he would be providing advice around the court case.

“I understand that somebody is going to be writing to me at some point, whether that’s the judge – I think that was the original suggestion – I now believe it may be one of the ministers and I would welcome that.”

He said he will “provide advice based on what the current best practice is in jurisdictions around the world, and that is based on progressive measures to promote minority languages”.

“I don’t think they [the executive] have handled the issues very well, or at all, and that’s why we’ve ended up in this position in terms of Grand Central,” Mr Deeds said.

In September, a judge called on ministers to enter discussions instead of spending public money being on opposing sides in a legal battle and said Northern Ireland was seen as a “laughing stock” over Irish language signs at the station.

Relationship with unionists

Mr Deeds said he believed the Irish language was “absolutely not” controversial but he accepted the concerns around Irish language within those in the unionist community.

"I want to engage with people as I go about this work to see what their concerns are and I accept completely that there are concerns, deep concerns, in the PUL (Protestant, unionist, loyalist) community especially about the Irish language and that has developed over years.

“There is a line, and the Irish language community have been attacked,” he added.

“I understand, especially in a divided society such as ours, a minority language is seen as a badge of identity by one political grouping or another, I understand the damage that does.”

Irish language policy at Belfast City Council

Last month, Belfast City councillors voted in favour of adopting a new draft Irish language policy, which would lead to more widespread use of the language across the city.

The policy aimed to promote the use of Irish in public life, and pledged that the council would adopt English-Irish signage at its facilities, as well as a new bilingual logo for vehicles and uniforms.

The DUP said it was “madness”, had not been fully costed and were “divisive”.

At that time, Mr Deeds accused the executive office of “failing in their duty of care” over the Irish Language Act.

On Friday, Mr Deeds said his statement was about the “frustration” he felt in the wake of the decision made by Belfast City Council.

“I felt the debate about the Irish language degenerated to such a degree that The Executive Office should have really said something,” he said.

‘I don’t do Kneecap’

When asked on the BBC’s Talkback programme about the impact of Kneecap, the west Belfast rap group who perform mostly in Irish, Mr Deeds said he recognised the global stage the group had lifted the language on to.

“There’s value in that,” he said.

"There’s even more value in the amount of young people who have been encouraged to use and learn and come back to their Irish.

"I’m not disputing that, it’s just not a way that I would seek to see the Irish language promoted, but I guess that’s more of a personal view than anything else.

“My problem is that it can be quite divisive.”

At the same time Mr Deeds was appointed, Lee Reynolds was named commissioner for the Ulster-Scots and Ulster British tradition and Dr Katy Radford director of the new Office of Identity and Cultural Expression (OICE).

The posts were agreed as part of the New Decade New Approach deal in 2020, which led to the restoration of the Stormont executive after a three-year collapse.