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1 - The St Andrews Agreement of October 2006 committed the UK government to work with the incoming Executive to protect and enhance the development of the Irish and Ulster Scots Languages. This commitment was consequently included in amendments to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, placing duties on the Executive to adopt a strategy setting out how it proposes to enhance and protect the development of the Irish language and Ulster Scots language, heritage and culture.
2 – The Interdepartmental Charter Implementation Group, (ICIG) has begun consideration of a framework for a draft strategy for Northern Ireland’s Indigenous or Regional Minority Languages. It is planned that the strategy will be underpinned by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and will meet a range of government commitments to both of these languages, including the commitments in Section 28D of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, mentioned previously.
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
3 The Charter is an international convention designed to protect and promote regional or minority languages as a threatened aspect of Europe’s cultural heritage. It contains detailed undertakings designed to support the languages.
4- The UK ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2001. The UK has recognised obligations to protect Ulster-Scots and Irish. Ulster-Scots has Part 2 status, Irish has Part 3 status.
Irish and Ulster-Scots
5-The development of a single strategy for regional minority languages is designed to highlight our shared heritage and to strive towards parity between the languages. It will be underpinned by our commitments in the Charter which already takes into account the position of each individual language and the strategy will do this also.
6 – It is recognised that the regional languages are at different stages of development for various reasons and it is intended that the strategy will recognise and address this.
Resources for the Strategy
7 – In considering the overall strategy the Executive will also need to consider resource issues. There may be scope for the reallocation of existing funding by Departments in order to resource the work on languages and in line with the priority they give to the provision of those resources. In addition the cross-departmental Languages Strategy will be underpinned by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Consultation on the Languages
8 – The Interdepartmental Group has previously engaged with the Ulster-Scots Academy Implementation Group Partnership, Foras na Gaeilge and Pobal regarding some aspects of the development of the framework for the strategy, and has access to information from the previous consultation on the proposed Ulster Scots Academy and proposed Irish language legislation. Formal consultation will be built in as part of the policy development.
9 - The ICIG is made up of representatives of all Northern Ireland Departments and also from Whitehall Departments that operate in Northern Ireland. A framework for a draft strategy was presented to the ICIG on 28 October, and some initial comments have been received and will inform further drafting of the document.
10 – It is envisaged that the ICIG will be a key player in terms of the implementation of the strategy as it will be the responsibility of each Department to set out it’s own particular plans to achieve the objectives of the Strategy. It is also envisaged that the ICIG will remain the mechanism to report each Department’s progress on the implementation of the various aspects of the Charter.
Aims of the Strategy
11 – The high level principles of the Strategy
*overarching
*non-prescriptive
*needs based
*deliverable within existing resources
12 – The draft strategy framework will likely be based on the following aims
*create a framework where our indigenous minority languages can flourish and be shared by all who wish
*protect and support the development and learning of our indigenous minority languages and
*promote wider understanding of the background to the languages through recognition and respect for the relevant culture, heritage and tradition.
Current position
14 – The Minister therefore intends to submit a paper to the Northern Ireland Executive proposing the High Level Principles on which a Strategy for Indigenous or Regional Minority Languages in Northern Ireland will be based. This will highlight a number of key issues which need to be decided to inform the future shape and direction of the Strategy. The purpose of the paper will be to get a steer from the Executive on the proposed approach. This will allow a further more detailed work to be undertaken on the strategy in light of the Executives wishes.
15 – There will subsequently be formal consultation on the draft strategy during the development process.

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