Department for Communities cuts funding for the Líofa Gaeltacht Bursary Scheme

Some news just in from the Department for Communities, under the leadership of the DUP’s Paul Givan.

The Líofa Gaeltacht Bursary Scheme enabled at least 100 people a year to attend summer Irish language classes in the Donegal gaeltacht.

The Líofa programme was set up by former culture minister, Carál Ní Chuilín.

The DfC announced the cut in an email from the Líofa office.

It was sent to the boards of the gaeltacht colleges on 23 December.

The report goes on to note the angry response from members of the Irish Language Community;

Representatives from the gaeltacht colleges said that the bursary funding was worth about £50,000 per year, and enabled those unable to afford to meet the cost themselves to spend time at colleges in the gaeltacht.

The president of Comhaltas Uladh, Dr Niall Comer called the move a “blatant act of discrimination.”

“Comhaltas Uladh of Conradh na Gaeilge considers this to be quite simply a deliberate and cynical attack on the Irish language, without any justification nor reason,” he said.

“Our summer colleges are cross-community and disadvantaged children from both sides of the community have availed of this scholarship scheme.

“This decision will directly impact on hundreds of Irish language learners, from disadvantaged families across the north.

“The minister’s decision must be contextualised in terms of recent political events, where we have, this week, seen almost half a billion pound of public money squandered.”

“Cutting successful schemes aimed at disadvantaged children from both communities is not the answer.”

The department for communities confirmed that the programme would not run in 2017 due to the need to find efficiency savings.

This will no doubt put further strain on the DUP-Sinn Fein relationship as they focus on issues of funding within the Department of Communities and attempt to sort out the fallout from the RHI scheme in 2017.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.