Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022 facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022

Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to make provision about national and cultural identity and language in Northern Ireland.
Citation	2022 c. 45
Introduced by	Shailesh Vara (Commons) Lord Caine, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Lords)
Territorial extent	Northern Ireland
Dates
Royal assent	6 December 2022
Commencement	See section 10
Status: Current legislation
History of passage through Parliament
a/2022/45/enacted Text of statute as originally enacted

The Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022 is a special law passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This law officially recognizes the Irish language in Northern Ireland. It also makes Ulster Scots an officially recognized minority language.

This law was first thought of as an Irish Language Act (Irish: Acht na Gaeilge). The idea was to give the Irish language the same importance as English in Northern Ireland. This would be similar to how the Welsh language is treated in Wales under the Welsh Language Act 1993.

What the Act Does

This new law includes several important points:

• It officially recognizes and protects the Irish language.
• It supports the development of the Ulster Scots and Ulster British traditions.
• Two special people, called commissioners, will be chosen. One will focus on the Irish language, and the other on the Ulster Scots/Ulster British tradition.
• A new group called the Office of Identity and Cultural Expression will be created.
• £4 million will be invested to help the Irish language.

The parts of the law about the Irish language were inspired by the Welsh Language Act 1993.

Why This Law Was Needed

In Northern Ireland, about 184,898 people (around 10.65%) said they know some Irish. However, only about 4,130 people (0.2%) speak it as their main language every day.

Before this Act, the Irish language was already protected as a minority language. This was thanks to a European agreement called the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. This agreement is still in place. Since 2008, the Irish republican political party Sinn Féin has been asking for stronger laws to protect the language.

Who Supported and Opposed It

Many groups and political parties supported this law. These included An Dream Dearg, Conradh na Gaeilge, POBAL, Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Alliance Party, and the Green Party.

However, the law was opposed by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Ulster Unionist Party.

An Irish language supporter named Linda Ervine, who is also a unionist, came to support the law. She changed her mind after some comments by a DUP politician, Gregory Campbell, who made fun of the Irish language. Linda Ervine said the law would not really affect people who do not speak Irish. She also felt that some politicians were trying to "scare" people.

When an early version of the law was shared in 2018, Irish language groups felt it did not go far enough. They wanted more rights for Irish speakers. At the same time, DUP supporters were against the law.

In 2017, a group called An Dream Dearg held a large event in Belfast to support the law. Thousands of people attended. In May 2019, over 200 famous Irish people signed a letter. They asked the leader of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, and the UK Prime Minister at the time, Theresa May, to support the law.

The former leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, once said it would make more sense to pass a Polish Language Act. She argued that more people in Northern Ireland speak Polish than Irish. However, fact-checkers have said her claim was not accurate. Foster also said that giving in to Sinn Féin's demands for the Act was like "If you feed a crocodile they're going to keep coming back and looking for more." She accused Sinn Féin of using the Irish language to cause problems for unionists.

How the Law Came About

Sinn Féin and POBAL, a group for Irish speakers in Northern Ireland, pointed out that the British government had promised such a law in the 2006 St Andrews Agreement. However, unionists said they never agreed to this promise.

As part of a deal in January 2020 called New Decade, New Approach, many ideas for an Irish Language Act were agreed upon. Instead of a brand new law, these changes would be made by updating existing laws.

Earlier Ideas for the Law (2014, 2017)

In 2014, Sinn Féin wanted a law that would:

• Appoint an Irish language commissioner.
• Create special Gaeltacht areas where Irish is mainly spoken.
• Allow people to use Irish in the court system.
• Allow Irish to be used in the Northern Ireland Assembly (also known as Stormont).
• Allow Irish to be used with public services.
• Support Irish-medium education (schools where lessons are taught in Irish).
• Allow bilingual signs (in both Irish and English).

In 2017, Conradh na Gaeilge (an organization that promotes the Irish language) suggested a law that would:

• Give the language official status.
• Allow Irish in the Assembly.
• Allow Irish in local government.
• Include Irish in BBC broadcasts.
• Include Irish in the Department of Education.
• Create a Language Commissioner role.
• Deal with placenames (names of towns and places).

Other ideas included making a law similar to the Welsh Language Act 1993 or the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005.

Political Problems (2017 to 2020)

In January 2017, Martin McGuinness, a Sinn Féin leader, resigned from his government role. This was because of a scandal about heating payments. Sinn Féin then refused to choose a new person for his job. Northern Ireland has a special power-sharing system where both main parties must agree to form a government. Because of this, the Stormont Assembly stopped working.

Gerry Adams, who was the Sinn Féin leader at the time, said in August 2017, "There won't be an assembly without an Acht na Gaeilge." This meant they would not form a government without the Irish Language Act. By 2019, many believed that the Irish Language Act was the biggest disagreement stopping a deal to restart the government.

The Agreement (2020 to 2022)

On January 11, 2020, Sinn Féin and the DUP finally agreed to restart the government. This was part of the New Decade, New Approach agreement. In this agreement, there would not be a separate Irish Language Act. Instead, the Northern Ireland Act 1998 would be changed, and new policies would be put in place to:

• Give official status to both the Irish language and Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland.
• Create an Irish Language Commissioner. This person would "recognize, support, protect and improve the Irish language in Northern Ireland." This would be part of a new Office of Identity and Cultural Expression, which would also have an Ulster Scots/Ulster British Commissioner.
• Introduce "language standards" similar to those for the Welsh language. However, the First Minister or deputy First Minister could stop these standards.
• Cancel an old law from 1737 that banned the use of Irish in Northern Ireland's courts.
• Allow members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to speak in Irish or Ulster Scots. There would be people to translate for those who do not speak these languages.
• Create a central translation team within the Northern Ireland government.

By January 2021, there was a promise to create the Office of Identity and Cultural Expression. The government office estimated that £28 million would be set aside to improve the status of the Irish language. However, there were debates about how this money would be used.

Discussions about the exact wording of the law continued throughout 2021. One concern was reportedly about the titles of the commissioners. In 2022, with an election coming up, it was announced that the law would not be passed before the election.

The Law in the UK Parliament (2022)

Finally, the law was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London. The Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on May 25, 2022. It was discussed there until July 13. The next day, it moved to the House of Commons for its first reading. It was discussed again on October 12. The Bill passed in the House of Commons on October 26.

On December 6, the Act received royal assent. This means it was officially approved by the King and became law. Once the different parts of the law are put into action, Irish will become an official language in Northern Ireland.

See also

• Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005
• Welsh Language Act 1993
• Official Languages Act 2003 (Ireland)