Offaly County Council criticised for poor engagement on Irish language issues

Offaly County Council has apologised for its lack of engagement with an investigation into complaints about the absence of Irish language on signs it erected in Edenderry, Tullamore and Birr.

The investigation was conducted by the outgoing Coimisinéir Teanga, Rónán Ó Domhnaill, and details of it were contained in his annual report for 2022, which was published last week.

In strongly-worded criticism, Mr Ó Domhnaill said there were times during his investigation when Offaly County Council "completely failed to respond" and did not provide requested details, despite "a significant number of attempts by my office to seek cooperation".

He said that, during his nine years as Coimisinéir Teanga, "no other local authority, or indeed any other public body, to my knowledge, has been as dilatory and unresponsive in communicating with my office as Offaly County Council during this investigation".

The commissioner's report outlined how he had received three complaints, between October 2017 and January 2019, "regarding the lack of Irish on Offaly County Council signs".

The signs in question were "erected by (the council) in Edenderry, Tullamore and Birr," and also included "parking signs and parking signs for those with disabilities" in Edenderry.

In his report, Mr Ó Domhnaill said he made initial attempts to resolve the issues with the council informally, but it was unresponsive. As a result, he decided to start an investigation into the matter.

"These complaints about signage were not difficult to resolve informally if only appropriate input into the process had been received from Offaly County Council," he stated.

As his investigation progressed, the local authority remained unresponsive to his requests for information, and, as a result, he "took the unusual decision in July 2021 to require the chief executive of Offaly County Council... to attend before me and provide me with oral information in relation to the subject matter of the investigation".

However, Mr Ó Domhnaill indicated that, the following month, the director of his office was contacted by a senior executive officer in the Human Resources and Corporate Affairs department of the county council.

The official apologised on behalf of the council for "the lack of engagement to date" and promised that the issues raised in the investigation "were being investigated and would be responded to shortly".

Mr Ó Domhnaill said that, as a result of the promised cooperation from the local authority in August 2021, he "decided at the time not to require the chief executive of the county council to appear before me to give oral evidence".

The council provided a written response to the commissioner's investigation in November 2021, and he said this "focused on questions relating to the signs about which complaints had been made".

He said that, due to the "lack of cooperation by the county council" previously, he again wrote to the local authority last August to request details about its complaints enquiry system.

There was another delay in replying to this request, the commissioner noted. The response which was issued in November contained an apology for the council's "lack of action and complete disregard for a statutory investigation," but "no explanation was given as to why or how it occurred within the timeline provided".

The commissioner's report on the council concluded with three recommendations.

He recommended that the erroneous signage erected by the council should be corrected within three months, and that a system should be put in place to ensure all future signage would comply with language legislation.

He also said the county council's communications response system should be "reviewed" and that recommendations should be made to him for changes to ensure there was "no undue delay or failure to communicate with respect to correspondence from me in the performance of my statutory functions as Coimisinéir Teanga”.

When contacted by the Offaly Independent, the council said it had noted the findings of the report and had “reviewed and strengthened” its procedure for dealing with complaints received from An Coimisinéir Teanga.