‘Once-off’ funding for cross-border group

Cross-border Irish language agency Foras na Gaeilge is to receive a “once-off” funding package of €630,000 (£547,000) from the Irish government.

It will allow the language body to “reverse” cuts it announced earlier this year, the Dublin administration said.

The announcement follows a meeting on Thursday of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC).

It was set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and involves ministers from both the Irish government and Northern Ireland Executive.

Foras na Gaeilge is one of the all-island bodies which reports to the council.

In February it said it had to make savings of more than €800,000 (£669,000), which would mean cuts to some groups operating in Northern Ireland.

Irish government minister Dara Calleary said the “once-off payment” of €630,000 related to “historical pension costs”.

He added this would allow the Irish language body to “reverse cuts it announced earlier this year”.

Foras na Gaeilge receives around a quarter of its funding from the Stormont executive and three-quarters from the Irish government.

The Irish government has previously said extra money has been available in its budget, but this must be matched “according to the funding ratio” by Stormont’s Department for Communities before any budget increase can be made.

There have been proposals to change the funding arrangements for the NSMC’s cross-border bodies.

But Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the lead parties in Stormont’s power-sharing executive, have been at odds over the idea.

The NSMC meeting on Thursday was also attended by Stormont’s Communities Minister Gordon Lyons, of the DUP, and Junior Minister Aisling Reilly of Sinn Féin.

Calleary, who also announced one-off funding for the Ulster Scots Agency, thanked Lyons for his “cooperation in this matter”.

Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin, president of the Irish language campaign group Conradh na Gaeilge, said the funding provided “much-needed but temporary respite”.

“If the much-needed reforms are not made to that funding model then we will be right back in the same funding crisis in January 2026, and every January thereafter,” he said.